"The Government can't do anything right"

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet -- which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration -- and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

Question everything you know about rock and roll

I really want to read Elijah Wald's new book and you should, too. But if you're of a certain age or younger, you may find your mental universe exploding.


Wald challenged conventional wisdom about the blue in his highly recommended Escaping the Devil: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues,

Here's the title of the new book.

How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music.
You can't get more provocative than that.

Here's the description from Wald's website

How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ’n’ Roll is a history of American popular music stripped of the familiar clichés of jazz and rock history. Tracing the evolution of popular music through developing tastes, trends and technologies, rather than applying modern standards and genre categories, it gives a fuller, more balanced look at the broad variety of styles that captured listeners over the course of the twentieth century.

Wald goes back to original sources—recordings, period articles, memoirs and interviews—in an attempt to understand how music was heard and experienced over the years. He pays particular attention to the world of working musicians and ordinary listeners rather than to stars and specialists, looking at the evolution of jazz as dance music and of rock 'n' roll in terms of the teenage girls who made up the bulk of its early audience. There are plenty of famous names—Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, the Beatles—but they are placed alongside figures like Paul Whiteman, Guy Lombardo, Mitch Miller, Jo Stafford, Ricky Nelson and the Shirelles, who in some cases were far more popular and more accurately represent the mainstream of their times.

As the title suggests, this is not a hesitant or stolidly academic history, but neither is it heedlessly provocative. Wald’s intention was to explore the past with an open mind, asking some new questions and answering them as honestly and accurately as possible, and to make sense of times and people who often seem very foreign, though they are our own parents and grandparents. He has also tried to make that journey amusing and interesting, whatever we may think of ballroom orchestras, bobby-soxers, pop balladeers or British invaders.

I suspect that everything that won the Beatles praise from the likes of Leonard Bernstein and the cultural elite is regretted by Wald.

Erik Himmelsbach explains Wald's provocative thesis in a LA Times review:

Wald explains that the Beatles did in fact destroy rock 'n' roll by creating a schism between white and black music that's only grown farther apart in the decades since the dawn of Beatlemania (see: disco, soul, hip-hop). Like many early rock bands, the Beatles were rooted in the music of Chuck Berry and Little Richard. As the band found its creative voice, they abandoned their early influences. The results included "the effetely sentimental ballad" "Yesterday," a song that Wald claims "diffused" rock's energy and opened the door for milquetoasts such as Simon and Garfunkel, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Billy Joel, and Elton John. With the Sgt. Pepper album, the band draped their music "in a robe of arty mystification, opening the way for the Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, Yes, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer."

"Rather than being a high point of rock," he continues, "the Beatles destroyed rock 'n' roll, turning it from a vibrant (or integrated) dance music into a vehicle for white pap and pretension." And what, again, was so revolutionary about Pat Boone?

UPDATE August 19 Be sure to read the comment from Elijah Wald.

I bought the book yesterday at Kramerbooks in DC. I've already read through the first six chapters. Essential reading for those interested in American popular culture.

Thomas Frank on Wrecking Crew

Thomas Frank has an entertaining video about his new book The Wrecking Crew.

He'll be in Wichita on Sept 16 (7:00 PM) at Watermark Books.

50th Anniversay of Newport Folk Festival

This weekend is the 50th anniversay of the Newport Folk Festival. It began as a spin-off of George Wein's Newport Jazz Festival, but took on a life of its own. Early on, Pete Seeger suggested a new format. Each artists would be paid the same modest $50 fee and the extra money would be spent on additional artists and, more importantly on "song-catchers who would scout the country for unknown or forgotten folk artists. Special efforts were made as well to recruit young and rising artists. Joan Baez made her national debut here.

The festival was discontinued, but it's back for a big gala event this year. NPR has a mini-site devoted to the Newport Folk Festival. It is also broadcasting lots of perfomances live on Saturday and Sunday. NPR Music, WFUV, Folk Alley and mvyradio will broadcast and webcast from the Folk Festival 50 on Aug. 1-2.

Here's Saturday's Scheduled Live Performances, check the NPR site for further details.

12:10 p.m. Billy Bragg

1:20 p.m. The Avett Brothers

2:40 p.m. Gillian Welch

4 p.m. Fleet Foxes

5:30 p.m. The Decemberists

7 p.m. A Singalong with Pete & Tao Seeger & friends

The NPR site has lots of archived performances from past NFF and even a free 12-tune download. Unfortunately, it is done through iTunes, so you are going to be restricted on where you can play them. There a nice photo essay on Bob Dylan at the 1963 festival.

1965 is the year I would have liked to have been at Newport. I wouldn't have been booing.





Couldn't find a video of the third song, but this is the performance with pics from the NFF.

Schofdorf Looking at 4th District Race

According to the Eagle

WICHITA — State Sen. Jean Schodorf, R-Wichita, announced today the formation of an exploratory committee to decide whether to seek the 4th District congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard.

This is the first step toward running for the office but stops short of an official announcement. Schodorf says she will launch a listening tour of the 4th District.

Schodorf, considered to be a legislative moderate, will face two more conservative candidates in the GOP primary: state Sen. Dick Kelsey, R-Goddard, and Republican National Committee member Mike Pompeo.

How will a "moderate" in the Kansas GOP translate into national politics? Hard to tell. In the Second District, Lynn Jenkins was the "moderate" alternative to Jim Ryun in the 2008 primary, but she's been pretty much a far-right wing-nut since being elected

NYT Times on Tiller

The Sunday New York Times had a long profile on murdered abortion doctor George Tiller.

Registration is required, but it is free.

Here's an excerpt

Long ago, he had accepted the possibility he might be assassinated. It was something he and his fellow abortion providers had quietly discussed, and friends said he had lost count of all the death threats.

Even so, there was a mood of stunned rage when local abortion rights advocates gathered the Friday after his killing at First Unitarian Universalist Church in Wichita. ...

But it was a demoralized group. In Topeka, the state capital, they have long been outmuscled by conservative Christians, who have been steadily chipping away at abortion rights. One woman, a lobbyist for abortion rights, described how some legislators literally turned their backs when she testified.

Gail Finney, a junior member of the Legislature, stood and asked why there had not been more outcry from the state’s leaders over Dr. Tiller’s killing. “Where’s the anguish?” Ms. Finney said.

Not a single Kansas politician of statewide prominence showed up the next morning for Dr. Tiller’s funeral, which drew 1,200 mourners. Nor were any at Reformation Lutheran the next day, the first Sunday service after his death.

In the foyer where he was shot, the juice and coffee table had been turned into a memorial, with Dr. Tiller’s photograph next to a basket of buttons he had passed out by the boxful to patients, employees and friends. “Attitude is Everything,” they said.

Outside, Pastor Michelson greeted families with hugs. “There was no way I was going to hide inside,” he later said.

The Tiller clan took their usual spot in the pews, and Mrs. Tiller, radiant in red, was embraced again and again. Flowers from her husband’s funeral framed the altar.

The church was more crowded than usual.

In his sermon, Pastor Michelson openly acknowledged his own apprehensions. “Our sanctuary has been violated,” he said. He urged his congregation to rise above fear and anger, and took note of the supportive letters and e-mail messages from churches all over the country.

Two worker victories in Missouri and Kansas

Low-paid home care workers in Missouri vote decisively for a union and high-paid engineers at Spirit in Wichita resoundingly reject a take-away contract that included giving the right for the company to have workers work 4 hours of overtime a week without pay.

Of course, these are victories along the way. Both workers still have to negotiate a decent contract. The home care workers have to build a new union and negotiate a first contract. The engineers will be back at the table next week and they need to build their membership to get a better contract.

Best of luck to them.

Washington Post Health Care Poll

18. (Do you think it's possible to reform the health care system in a way that people who have coverage now can keep it without any changes if they want to), or (do you think health care reform will require everyone to make changes, whether they want to or not)?

      Reform possible     Reform will
         without changes   require changes   No opinion
6/21/09         38                58               4

19. Would you support or oppose a law that requires all Americans to have health insurance, either getting it from work or buying it on their own?

          Support   Oppose   No opinion
6/21/09     49        47           4

20. Would you support or oppose a law that requires all Americans to have health insurance if it included [ITEM]?

6/21/09 - Summary Table*

                                                   Support   Oppose   No opin.
a. A rule that all employers either offer health
  insurance to their employees or pay money into
  a government health insurance fund                 62        34         4
b. A rule that working Americans who don't get
  insurance through work or on their own would
  have to pay money into a government health
  insurance fund                                     44        52         4
c. A tax credit or other aid to help low-income
  Americans pay for health insurance                 70        28         2
d. A rule that insurance companies sell coverage
  to people regardless of pre-existing conditions    68        27         5
*Half sample asked items a-b; other half sample asked items c-d.

21. Would you support or oppose having the government create a new health insurance plan to compete with private health insurance plans? (IF SUPPORT) Would you rather have that plan run by a government agency, or run by an independent organization with government funding and oversight?

----------- Support ------------
         NET   Gov't agency   Indep. org.   Oppose   No opinion
6/21/09   62         21            41          33          5

21a. (IF SUPPORT) What if having the government create a new health insurance plan made many private health insurers go out of business because they could not compete? In that case would you support or oppose creating a government-run health insurance plan?

     
           Support   Oppose   No opinion
 6/21/09     56        41          3


21/21a NET

                   ------- Oppose --------
         Support   NET   At first   Now do   No opinion
6/21/09     37      58       33        25          5

22. (HALF SAMPLE) Would you support or oppose a federal tax on health insurance benefits people receive through their employer if those benefits cost more than 17-thousand dollars a year?

          Support   Oppose   No opinion
6/21/09     24        70          6

23. (HALF SAMPLE) Would you support or oppose raising income taxes on Americans with household incomes over 250-thousand dollars to help pay for health care reform?

          Support   Oppose   No opinion
6/21/09     60        37          3

24. (HALF SAMPLE) Would you support or oppose a law limiting the amount of money someone can collect if they win a lawsuit after being injured by bad medical care?

           Support   Oppose   No opinion
6/21/09     57        42          2

25. (HALF SAMPLE) Would you support or oppose a law limiting the amount of money you could collect if you won a lawsuit after being injured by bad medical care?

           Support   Oppose   No opinion
6/21/09     53        42          4

26. Just your best guess, if the health care system is changed, do you think the quality of your health care will get (better), get (worse), or remain about the same?

           Better   Worse   Same   No opinion
6/21/09     16      31      50         3

27. Which comes closer to the way you feel: government reform of the nation's health care system (is necessary to control costs and expand coverage), or government action on health care (will do more harm than good)? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?

          ------- Necessary -------   -- More harm than good --
         NET   Strongly   Somewhat   NET   Somewhat   Strongly   No opinion
6/21/09   58       34         23      39       15         24           3

"Who do you trust on health care"

WaPo poll asks

Who do you trust to do a better job handling health care? - and finds:

Obama (54)
Republicans in Congress (34)

Lezek Kolakowski,: How to be a Conservaite Liberal Socialist

Lezek Kolakowski, the exile Polish philosopher,died last Friday. I remember reading an essay of his on utopia when he was still a dissident in Communist Poland. This essay below was written many years later. I think you might enjoy it.

How to be a Conservative-Liberal-Socialist"

By Leszek Kolakowski.

Motto: "Please step forward to the rear!" This is an approximate translation of a request I once heard on a tram-car in Warsaw. I propose it as a slogan for the mighty International that will never exist.

A Conservative Believes:

1. That in human life there never have been and never will be improvements that are not paid for with deteriorations and evils; thus, in considering each project of reform and amelioration, its price has to be assessed. Put another way, innumerable evils are compatible (i.e. we can suffer them comprehensively and simultaneously); but many goods limit or cancel each other, and therefore we will never enjoy them fully at the same time. A society in which there is no equality and no liberty of any kind is perfectly possible, yet a social order combining total equality and freedom is not. The same applies to the compatibility of planning and the principle of autonomy, to security and technical progress. Put yet another way, there is no happy ending in human history.

2. That we do not know the extent to which various traditional forms of social life--families, rituals, nations, religious communities--are indispensable if life in a society is to be tolerable or even possible. There are no grounds for believing that when we destroy these forms, or brand them as irrational, we increase the chance of happiness, peace, security, or freedom. We have no certain knowledge of what might occur if, for example, the monogamous family was abrogated, or if the time-honored custom of burying the dead were to give way to the rational recycling of corpses for industrial purposes. But we would do well to expect the worst.

3. That the idee fixe of the Enlightenment--that envy, vanity, greed, and aggression are all caused by the deficiencies of social institutions and that they will be swept away once these institutions are reformed-- is not only utterly incredible and contrary to all experience, but is highly dangerous. How on earth did all these institutions arise if they were so contrary to the true nature of man? To hope that we can institutionalize brotherhood, love, and altruism is already to have a reliable blueprint for despotism.

A Liberal Believes:

1. That the ancient idea that the purpose of the State is security still remains valid. It remains valid even if the notion of "security" is expanded to include not only the protection of persons and property by means of the law, but also various provisions of insurance: that people should not starve if they are jobless; that the poor should not be condemned to die through lack of medical help; that children should have free access to education--all these are also part of security. Yet security should never be confused with liberty. The State does not guarantee freedom by action and by regulating various areas of life, but by doing nothing. In fact security can be expanded only at the expense of liberty. In any event, to make people happy is not the function of the State.

2. That human communities are threatened not only by stagnation but also by degradation when they are so organized that there is no longer room for individual initiative and inventiveness. The collective suicide of mankind is conceivable, but a permanent human ant-heap is not, for the simple reason that we are not ants.

3. That it is highly improbable that a society in which all forms of competitiveness have been done away with would continue to have the necessary stimuli for creativity and progress. More equaliity is not an end in itself, but only a means. In other words, there is no point to the struggle for more equality if it results only in the leveling down off those who are better off, and not in the raising up of the underprivileged. Perfect equality is a self-defeating ideal.

A Socialist Believes:

1. That societies in which the pursuit of profit is the sole regulator of the productive system are threatened with as grievous--perhaps more grievous--catastrophes as are societies in which the profit motive has been entirely eliminated from the production-regulating forces. There are good reasons why freedom of economic activity should be limited for the sake of security, and why money should not automatically produce more money. But the limitation of freedom should be called precisely that, and should not be called a higher form of freedom.

2. That it is absurd and hypocritical to conclude that, simply because a perfect, conflictless society is impossible, every existing form of inequality is inevitable and all ways of profit-making justified. The kind of conservative anthropological pessimism which led to the astonishing belief that a progressive income tax was an inhuman abomination is just as suspect as the kind of historical optimism on which the Gulag Archipelago was based.

3. That the tendency to subject the economy to important social controls should be encouraged, even though the price to be paid is an increase in bureaucracy. Such controls, however, must be exercised within representative democracy. Thus it is essential to plan institutions that counteract the menace to freedom which is produced by the growth of these very controls.

So far as I can see, this set of regulative ideas is not self-contradictory. And therefore it is possible to be a conservative-liberal-socialist. This is equivalent to saying that those three particular designations are no longer mutually exclusive options.

As for the great and powerful International which I mentioned at the outset--it will never exist, because it cannot promise people that they will be happy.

From Leszek Kolakowski, Modernity on Endless Trial (University of Chicago, 1990).

The Invisible Library

Books that only exist in other books and now the subject of an exhibition in London, fittingly concluded on July 12 before anyone read about it here.

I understand that there are a number of books mentioned in the Bible which do not exist or have not survived.

Kobach--a birther?

GOP Secretary of Statel candidate Kris Kolbach told a not very funny joke the other day at a party event in Tonganoxie. According to the Lawrence World

Kobach asked what Obama and God had in common. He said neither had a birth certificate.

Kobach tried to talk his way out of this mess, by saying he was just joking.

Well, that means Kolbach was pandering to the worst sort of ignorance and prejudice in the GOP ranks.

The conservative talk show host Michael Medved has referred to the birthers as "crazy, nutburger, demagogue, money-hungry, exploitative, irresponsible, filthy conservative imposters" who are "the worst enemy of the conservative movement."

Raj Goyle will run for Kansas 4th Congressional District

It's not quite official, but State Representative Raj Goyle will be a candidate for Kansas' 4th Congressional District, centered around Wichita. Goyle told a Saturday DFA campaign school at Wichita State University today that he has sent a press release to the Wichita Eagle and other media announcing his candidacy.

Incumbent Todd Tiahrt is running for the US Senate aginst fellow- GOP Congressman Jerry Moran. So this will be an open seat. So fare the Republican candidates seem pretty lackluster.

Goyle is potentially a very strong candidate. He was elected in a stronglyy Republican House district, ousting an incumbent. He has shown a rare ability to mobilize volunteers, raise money, and run a grass-roots campaign. Goyle is very intelligent and has impressive political skills.

Whether those skills can translate froma state House district to a much larger Congressional District is another question. Whether Goyle can appeal to blue collar voters to the same degree as he won the support of the up-scale voters in his district will be another challenge.

This much is certain the 4th District should be on the national watch list for Democratic pickups in 2010.

David Brooks is an"exceptional" idiot

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

David Brooks is a conservative-leaning New York Times columnist and is supposedly one of the smartest political commentators around. How then to you explain his bizarre comment Friday on NPR. Brooks observed that it was the 500th birthday of John Calvin.

According to Brooks, Calvin was responsible for democracy, capitalism, and "American exceptionalism."

American exceptionalism is, according to Wikipedia,

the theory that the United States occupies a special niche among developed nations^[1] in terms of its national credo, historical evolution, political and religious institutions and unique origins.

Now how Calvin can be responsible for this special character of America is beyond me, especially since he died 40 years before the first British colony in North America.

Origins of the Moonwalk

(hattip to DI)

Abeja Mariposa Jr created a fascinating video history on the origins of the Moonwalk, showing that it goes way back in the traditions of black popular dance. I think it would be interesting to see this with the original music.

I wonder if any of the news networks showed and dicussed Michael's predecessors during their marathon coverage of the funeral and memorial.

Even if you don't consider yourself a Michael Jackson fan, this is worth watching.

The demented mind of Dennis Miller

I'm trying to remember if Dennis Miller was ever really funny. In his new right-wing radio incarnation, he certainly isn't. Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck strike me as being occasionally humorous. Miller more often comes off as just plain creepy.

Bob Newhart started his career with an album entitled "The Button-Down Mind." I wonder what a collection of Miller's radio raves might be titled.

On a broadcast I heard on Sunday, Miller said

"it's the romantic in me that wants to see Ahmadinejad's brain's splattered on a wall"--romantic!

Taner Edis summarizes every book on Islam by a Muslim

I like this post by Taner Edis. It made my laugh. Having read a fair number of those books, though far less than Taner, it rings true.

Summary of every book on the state of Islam written by a Muslim

Here, as a public service, is a summary of every single book on the state of Islam ever written by a devout Muslim in modern times:

The Muslim world is in crisis. But none of this indicates any fault with my version of Islam, which in its core precepts is divine and perfect. Muslims, however, have misunderstood Islam, and have therefore fallen into unfortunate circumstances.

There. That should save you from having to read through an awful lot of books. You're welcome.

Two books on the American Far Right --old and new

Two of my favorite books on the American far right were published 66 years apart. Leonard Zeskind's Blood and Politics was published just weeks ago, while John Roy Carlson's Undercover, was a best-seller in 1943.

Blood and Politics will likely be viewed as the authoritative history of the racialist American right over the last fifty years. It's going to be discussed next week in the TPM Cafe. Check out the discussion. Meanwhile, Daniel Levitas has an insightful review in the Forward.

To most Americans, including seasoned political observers, the machinations of white supremacists and professional antisemites are regarded, if at all, as crude carnival theater. After more than three decades of close observation, Leonard Zeskind, recipient of a 1998 MacArthur Fellowship for his independent scholarship on far-right, racist and neo-Nazi groups, is not so dismissive. More important, his first book, “Blood and Politics,” analyzes the past 35 years to provide a trenchant and troubling assessment of the future of what Zeskind terms “the white nationalist movement.”

Since the mid-1980s a number of books have detailed homegrown paramilitaries and the bigoted zealots behind them, but “Blood and Politics” provides an entirely deeper level of analysis. Zeskind is the first to fully integrate a sophisticated understanding of global events — specifically the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union — with an equally forceful insight into the uniquely American dynamics of racial identity, Southern sectionalism and national politics. After the Soviet Union “cracked apart like a three-minute egg,” and anticommunism became almost instantly irrelevant to American national identity, white nationalists rushed in to fill the vacuum.

The end of the Cold War dichotomy gave way to a new struggle, that of nationalism vs. internationalism, and the results of this “geopolitical earthquake” are still reverberating all around us, Zeskind explains. While most of the civilized world ostensibly looked on with horror as the multicultural communities of Yugoslavia disintegrated under the demands of ethnic nationalism, white supremacists and antisemites in the United States saw increased promise in the prospect of recasting their domestic struggle as both an ethnic and religious war.

Because Undercover as a tremendous best-seller, there's a good chance you might find it a used-book store, ebay, or abebooks. There is an on-line PDF

Here's what Time magazine said about Undercover back in 1943

For four years pseudonymous Author John Roy Carlson, a youthful Armenian-born journalist, has sat in on the conclaves of some 30 U.S. fascist and near-fascist groups. What he saw and heard, and what he thinks about it, makes a bulky (544 pages), jumbled, fact-crammed book. * It is good reading and worth reading; it is a believable account of real viciousness, relieved by fragments of pure absurdity. Smart readers will make allowances for Investigator Carlson's enthusiasms, distinguish for themselves between stooges and stars.

The Line. Before Pearl Harbor U.S. fascism was blatant and aggressive. Federal agents and public hostility have driven it to cover. So today's techniques are largely confined to whispering campaigns in industrial centers, promotion of racial violence, draft dodging, food hoarding, agitation for "democratic" opposition to the Administration. The objective, says Carlson, is to sabotage "with every means at their command, a quick Allied victory ... to ,prolong the conflict in order to intensify . . . work of dissension. . . ."

"The America First spirit," said Senator Gerald Nye to Carlson, "is much stronger now. But . . . you can ruin a good thing by coming out with it at the wrong time." When the time comes, explained the " 'dean' of American intellectual fascism," suave Lawrence Dennis, "such slogans as 'America for the Americans,' 'White Supremacy,' . . . 'Europe for the Europeans' . . . will become popular. Reactionary feeling will become rampant, followed closely by antiSemitism. . . . Declare yourself for the war now [and] after you say this begin to explain that we're fighting for Communism."

Roomful of Blues at SCZ

Roomful of Blues was at the Sedgwick County Zoo on Thursday night as part of the annual summer concert series. The band was excellent, the weather was hot, and two beers were welcome. Enjoy my sliceshow. Click the button and the pics will start.

New Poltics website-redesign

The website of the fine socialist political journal New Politics has an attractive new design. Take a look and if you like what you see, subscribe.

Dissent also redesigned its website not too long ago and is also recommended.

New Economics Blog

Economic Perspectives from Kansas City is a new economics blog featuring professors from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.

This is how they describe the blog

This website offers policy advice and economic analysis from a group of professional economists at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. We created this site in order to weigh in on the serious challenges facing the global economy today. We aim to provide an accurate description of the cause(s) of the current meltdown as well as some fresh ideas about how Congress, the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve should respond. Our approach, which has been dubbed “The Kansas City School,” builds on the work of Abba P. Lerner, John Maynard Keynes and Hyman P. Minsky. Above all, we are careful to provide analyses and policy recommendations that are applicable under a modern, fiat money system.

Here are a couple of blog posts that caught my attention

Stephanie Kelton "The Failure of the Mainstream Model"
Randall Wray, "The Fiscal Storm"
James Galbraith, "Fiscal Sustainability"

Deer at Zoo Blvd and I-235

A deer was killed in traffic yesterday around noon at Zoo Boulevard near I-235.

Counter-demo honors Dr. Tiller

I took some pictures at Saturday's counter-demo to honor Dr. Tiller.



Here's the quick background from KWCH

About 30 people attended a prayer vigil outside of Operation Rescue Saturday. They laid hundreds of flowers along the sidewalk as a symbol of their cause.

During the vigil, they prayed for Doctor George Tiller and his family. They said the purpose of the vigil was to pray for both Tiller and unborn babies....

The vigil was supposed to be outside of Tiller's clinic. But Saturday morning, they moved the vigil because the National Organization of Women planned a counter vigil at the clinic. More than 40 abortion rights supporters kept watch at the clinic on E. Kellogg.

Crisis in Iran A Statement from the Campaign for Peace and Democracy

[Here's a good statement from THE CAMPAIGN FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY (CPD) which advocates a new, progressive and non-militaristic U.S. foreign policy -- one that encourages democracy, justice and social change. Founded in 1982, the Campaign opposed the Cold War by promoting "detente from below." It engaged Western peace activists in the defense of the rights of democratic dissidents in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and enlisted East-bloc human rights activists against anti-democratic U.S. policies in countries like Nicaragua and Chile. The Campaign sees movements for peace, social justice and democratic rights, taken together, as the embryo of an alternative to great power politics and to the domination of society by privileged elites.]

We are horrified at what the Iranian government is doing in the aftermath of the June 12th elections. In a wave of state terror, security forces have arrested hundreds of oppositionists, reformist officials and ex-officials, and human rights activists. Using clubs, whips, chains, machetes and guns, they have viciously attacked protestors; many have been killed. Media, both domestic and international, have been shut down or restricted, and the authorities have attempted to prevent people from communicating with one another via cell phone, text messaging and Internet networking sites. All protest demonstrations have been banned.

Despite the savagery of the Republican Guards and the religious thugs of the Basij militia, however, opponents of Ahmadinejad have thus far refused to back down. Furious over an apparent clumsy and cynical manipulation of the election results, hundreds of thousands have marched in nonviolent protests in defiance of the ban. In the face of this courageous resistance, the government has retreated slightly, and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has offered to allow a partial recount. The protestors have said no to this offer -- they are demanding totally new elections.

We do not claim to know the true results of the elections. But there are certainly many indications of massive fraud; that, plus the fact that election monitoring by opposition groups and independent observers was barred, can only raise grave doubts about Ahmadinejad’s claim to a landslide victory. What is clear is that the results lack credibility for masses of Iranian citizens.

Even if the votes were fairly counted, it must be remembered that Iranian elections are far from democratic. The unelected Council of Guardians vets candidates to be sure they support the theocratic order before their names are ever allowed to appear on the ballot, which usually guarantees that anyone the authorities seriously oppose is disqualified from running in the first place. And while the Islamic Republic allows far more freedoms than many other countries in the region, it is still extremely repressive. Gay people have been brutally persecuted, women are forced to endure a host of restrictions on their rights, and workers have been beaten and jailed for striking and trying to organize trade unions.

Mir Hossein Mousavi does not represent a decisive break from the status quo. As Iran's prime minister during 1981-89, he didn’t challenge the fundamentals of the system. As Shirin Sadeghi pointed out in the Huffington Post, Mousavi was “a man known for upholding the values of a Republic that has systematically deprived Iranians of basic civil rights; a man who, as senior adviser to President Khatami stood by as the second ‘cultural revolution’ of the late 1990's and early 2000's swept students off the streets, shut down semi-free newspapers, terrorized dissidents, and paved the way for the so called ‘hardliners’.” Nevertheless, Mousavi’s support, albeit limited, of women’s rights and political freedom, has given him the backing of millions of Iranians.

This election has opened up new possibilities for Iranian politics that go far beyond Mousavi. As women’s rights activist Noushin Khorasani noted, its has already provided an opportunity for the formation of independent coalitions of women’s and students’ organizations, which had faced terrible repression; it is to be hoped that trade unions, too, will be able to take advantage of this new opening to function and play an independent role in Iranian society. Long-simmering splits among the ruling elite have become open fissures. Protestors in the streets and on the rooftops have cried “no to dictatorship,” referring to Ahmadinejad; perhaps the movement will soon take the next step and demand an end to the dictatorship of Khatamei, the Guardian Council, the Republican Guards and Basiji, and the whole corrupt ruling apparatus.

As for the response of our own government, given the long, sordid record of U.S. policy towards Iran, interference by Washington can only play into the hands of the forces opposed to democracy. U.S. support for the Shah before 1979 resulted in the evisceration of Iran's secular left. The Bush administration’s threats succeeded only in terrorizing the Iranian people and providing political ammunition to the mullahs. The Obama administration can help by removing sanctions on Iran and publicly and unambiguously renouncing any possibility of military attack, thus eliminating a major excuse for Ahmadinejad’s repressive policies.

The Campaign for Peace and Democracy extends its solidarity to the protesters in Iran, and salutes their bravery. We express our deep concern for their well-being in the face of brutal repression and our fervent wishes for the strengthening and deepening of the movement for justice and democracy in Iran.

* * * * * *

Understanding Von Brunn

The murderous assault on the Holocaust Museum by John Von Brunn should not be treated as just an isolated event. And, it probably won't since the murdered of Dr.Tiller comes from a similar environ.

Von Brunn is a reminder that there is a vibrant far right and that antisemtism was not been vanquished. (Unfortunately, there is also antisemitism on the left and, worse, a wider tolerance for it.)

There is going to be lots of reporting and commentary in the progressive media, but I want to recommend a blog that has some of the best coverage of Von Brumm. Check out the site of Adam Holland.

I suspect that over the next several years is going to be far more important to understand the far right than we are used to. It is not going to be enough to just thinks of them as "kooks" and "nutcases." In the next week or two, I'll be discussing some books, new and old, that I think will help in that task.

Another Case for Single-payer

Pam Pohly looks at the "Truth About Health Care"

It's a long post, but well worth reading.

Chicago photos

Here are a few photos I took while in Chicago recently for the Labor and Working Class History Association conference. (I did take lots of photos at the conference, but you'll have to wait a little bit to see them.)

Two left organizations, Democratic Socialists of America, and the independent union UE have recently issued positions papers on health care. Both are supporters of a single-payer system. However, judging this to be a unique political juncture, they also put forth demands for an acceptable public plan,

DSA says

the current political situation provides the best opportunity for serious health-care reform in a generation. We do not accept the position that unless we get everything we want, we are willing to see that opportunity disappear. We do believe, however, that the insurance industry is powerful enough that the current political dynamic could result in a “health care reform” that is, in fact, worse than nothing at all, because it would create a public plan that is designed to fail.

Therefore, even while we do everything we can to ensure that single payer gets a fair hearing, we must state our minimum requirements for possible alternatives to single-payer health insurance. Our minimum position is that any plan must include a strong public-provision component, one that can compete with the private insurance options. In evaluating proposed plans, the devil is, unfortunately, in the details.

Among the criteria to be considered:

• All employers and individuals must be eligible to choose the public plan, possibly during an annual open-enrollment period
• .The plan must be government run, operated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services or by a similar agency.
• The public plan must have the ability to negotiate drug prices.
• The public plan must be allowed to negotiate reimbursement rates, possibly pegged to Medicare rates.
• The public plan must, like Medicare, allow participants to choose their own doctors.

Short of these provisions, whatever comes out of Congress will not be real reform. Health care is a human right and must be available to all without economic barriers.

The UE says

Since the likelihood is growing that such a proposal may be adopted, we need to spell out what provisions would be acceptable to our union in such a plan, and what we would find unacceptable.

A public plan must be open to all workers and their families, and all employers must have the option of insuring their employees through the public plan rather than private insurance. This will allow more workers to share in the benefits of lower-cost public healthcare, and the savings to employers from the public plan will remove a major incentive for corporations to move jobs overseas.

Premiums for the public plan must be indexed to income and affordable for working class people. We oppose any effort to force the public plan to charge artificially high premiums for the purpose of bailing out the private insurance companies. If the private insurers cannot compete with a public plan on a level playing field, perhaps they should get out of the healthcare business.

A public plan must have the ability to bargain with providers over rates for services, and over prescription drug prices. Such bargaining would be one of the public plan’s most powerful tools for bringing down healthcare costs overall.

We reject the inclusion of “user fees” such as co-pays, deductibles, and out-of-pocket expenses in a public plan. Those who need care should not be penalized and forced to pay more than those who are healthy.

We oppose any effort to contract out the administration of the public plan to private profiteers. This would be a waste of resources that should go into providing healthcare, diverting some of those resources instead into cultivating a new crop of millionaires and billionaires. Such privatization would put people in charge of the public plan whose motives are in opposition to the public good.

If we are to have a system where a public plan competes with private insurance companies, consumers must be empowered to choose their coverage by evaluating objective information on the merits of each plan.

Marketing must be strictly limited; companies should not be trying to lure customers through costly advertising campaigns, nor such gimmicks as paying to name sports arenas after themselves.

Prop 8 ruling

Image by John Lemieux via Flickr

TAPPED, American Prospect's blog has an interesting reaction to the California Supreme Court decision. Kansas is one of those states where domestic partnerships are not only illegal, but unconstitutional. Kansas is one of the states where is it legal to fire someone because of their sexual orientation.

"At The Nation, Richard Kim urges activists to think twice before rushing toward an expensive battle to overturn Prop 8 at the ballot box in 2010. Why? Because California's domestic partnerships -- unlike DPs in other states -- already include all the rights and responsibilities of marriage." Kim writes:

I know people's emotions are very raw now; there are dozens of rallies planned around the country tonight. That's all fine and good. But the decision on whether or not to sink massive dollars and resources into an initiative to reverse Prop 8 in 2010 (remember, Prop 8 was the second most expensive election in the country in 2008; only the presidency cost more), should take this relative equality into account. There are dozens of states where same-sex couples have no partnership rights whatsoever; states where it is still legal to fire someone because they are gay; a federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act is still stalled in Congress. Aren't those better and more inclusive movement goals than an uphill initiative that would give same-sex couples the M-word in one state only? (emphasis added)

Memorial Day 2009

The Case for Single Payer

Here's an instructive video slide show from Steve Max of Democratic Socialists of America about single payer health care.

United Way of Plains Opens Laid Off Worker Center

Good news in response to bad news in Wichita.



For more about this story, see the press release on Kansas Workbeat.

Link round-up

Mick Hartley on Pete Seeger

Terry Glavin on May Day

Kansas Jackass on Kansas GOP votes against Matthew Shepard Act

Americans United commends Obama for ditching right-wing day of prayer

Venezuelan police break up May Day march

10 worst countries to be a blogger

Good video on employee free choice act

ITUC May Day Message

I found the May Day proclamation of the ITUC today:

Brussels, 30 April 2008 (ITUC OnLine): The world is facing its gravest economic crisis in over 60 years. Tens of millions of jobs are being lost due to the greed, plunder and incompetence which have, through decades of free market deregulation, led the world into deep recession. Global poverty and inequality are increasing fast, and working women and men everywhere face levels of insecurity unprecedented in recent times.

You should read the whole article.

Oklahoma GOP platform requires teaching creationism

Even if Sam Brownback is elected Governor in 2010, Kansas won't be the clear cut favorite to be the most backward state. Look what the Oklahoma GOP platform calls for"

7. We believe that the scientific evidence supporting Biblical creation should be included in Oklahoma public schools curricula, and if any evolution theory is taught, that both should receive equal funding, class time, and material. Teachers should have the freedom to cover creation science without fear of intimidation, reprimand, or lack of professional respect.

[...]

Curriculum
1. Curricula should include [...] the option of using the Bible as HISTORY [emphasis added] or literature text.

Class Realities

From Ryan Avent

Two thirds of the kids with average math scores and low-income parents wind up not going to college, while almost two-thirds of high-income kids with average math scores do go.

One of the most remarkable findings from the Pew Charitable Trusts' Economic Mobility Project is that a child from a family in the top income quintile who does not get a college degree is more likely to wind up in the top income quintile himself than a child from a family in the bottom income quintile who does get a college degree

Left should push for democratization of Cuba

Wise words from Marc Cooper

Obama's move Monday, his clean break with the last half-century of American policy, in itself begins to rob the Cuban government of its convenient bogeyman. Who in Cuba is going to believe that an Obama-led America poses a threat of invasion? (Answer: only a few dozen "revolutionary" Americans who at any given moment can be found in a Havana hotel bar telling themselves they are vacationing in Paradise).

I never bought the argument that the reality of a belligerant Bush admin in Washington somehow justified censorship, repression and oppression in Havana. It's a non-sequitor. We don't believe the threat of Al Qaeda justifies suspension of the U.S. constitution, do we? Are Cubans somehow entitled to a lower grade of civil liberties than we are?

So those of us who wish to lift the embargo now have the obligation to demand that the Cuban government start to make some tangible concessions toward democratization.

Raul Castro putting a few cell phones up for sale and his family members suddenly embracing the same gays and lesbians that were once relegated to UMAP labor camps ain't gonna cut it.

If Obama can enact a policy -- no matter how modest-- of creating an opening toward a "hostile" nation, then the Cuban government ought to be able to do the same in regard to its own population.

AFL-CIO and Change to Win Issue Immigration Statement

Image via Wikipedia

America's two union federations( the AFL-CIO and Change to Win) have released a common policy statement on comprehensive immigration reform.

Immigration reform is a component of a shared prosperity agenda that focuses on improving productivity and quality; limiting wage competition; strengthening labor standards, especially the freedom of workers to form unions and bargain collectively; and providing social safety nets and high-quality lifelong education and training for workers and their families. To achieve this goal, immigration reform must fully protect U.S. workers, reduce the exploitation of immigrant workers and reduce employers’ incentive to hire undocumented workers rather than U.S. workers. The most effective way to do that is for all workers— immigrant and native-born—to have full and complete access to the protection of labor, health and safety and other laws. Comprehensive immigration reform must complement a strong, well-resourced and effective labor standards enforcement initiative that prioritizes workers’ rights and workplace protections. This approach will ensure that immigration does not depress wages and working conditions or encourage marginal low-wage industries that depend heavily on substandard wages, benefits and working conditions.

This approach to immigration reform has five major interconnected pieces:

1. An independent commission to assess and manage future flows, based on labor market shortages that are determined on the basis of actual need; 2. A secure and effective worker authorization mechanism;
3. Rational operational control of the border;
4. Adjustment of status for the current undocumented population; and
5. Improvement, not expansion, of temporary worker programs, limited to temporary or seasonal, not permanent, jobs.

April 21 Call in for Higher Education and a Progressive Budget

For more information, see this great briefing from Campus Progress.

Don't Follow Tea baggers, Read the Traffic Signs

I shot this picture from the window of my car while driving by the Tea-baggers (here and here) protest in Wichita.

I didn't notice the traffic sign, until I got home.

"RIGHT LANE ENDS"

Appropriate.

Reading, Writing, and Union-buidling

Talking Union has an important post by Steve Early on books about labor, the obstacles to getting them bought and read, and steps that might be taken to create a synergy between university presses (and other publishers) and unions. It is a very important article. I encourage you to read it.

And buy and read some of the books.

Here's a couple of paragraphs from near the end.

If more unions took similar initiatives, there could be far greater book-selling synergy with university presses (or any cooperating labor book publisher) whenever union members are being trained at university facilities like Cornell’s or union-operated education centers, like the George Meany Center or the Maritime Institute, both located in Maryland. In an earlier era, some unions like the Auto Workers even operated book clubs for their members. Les Leopold’s The Man Who Hated Work recalls how OCAW leader Tony Mazzocchi, a ninth grade drop-out, launched a book discussion group among local union activists on Long Island, in the mid-1950s.

“Tony’s group saw itself as part of a working-class culture that encouraged self-education. Soon there were more than twenty people enrolled in the University of Mazzocchi. The introductory curriculum packed a political wallop. It started with Howard Fast….books such as Freedom Road, Spartacus and Citizen Tom Paine. Then, the group turned to the history of American class struggle through such works as Labor’s Untold Story and The History of the Fur and Leather Workers. For some, the reading group opened the door to more traditional literature as well. [One member] recalled how they passed around the Iliad and the Odyssey.”

Mrcyn Dylla--classical guitar concert

Saturday after a noon political meeting and a quick stop by State Representative Delia Garcia's Health and Job Fair, I went to a classical guitar concert at the Wichita Art Musuem.

I've been doing lots of politics and lots of meetings and lots of web stuff, so I was in the mood for music. It was an excellent concert.

The artist is Marcin Dylla.
Check out his website. There are even some mp3s.

Mark Brenner on the Economic Crisis

Mark Brenner, director of Labor Notes, gave a presentation on the economic crises at a conference last week end in Kansas City. It's about thirty minutes and packed with information.

[I'm still figuring out how to make good title frames. What looks great in my video editing software does not look so good once it goes through compression for streaming and Google's processes]

Lessons in Movement Building from Oklahoma Socialists

"American Marxism: Lessons in Movement Building from Oklahoma Socialists"

An evening with Jim Bissett, Chair and Professor Department of History and Geography, Elon University, North Carolina

Introductory Comments by Scott Carter, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, The University of Tulsa

WHEN AND WHERE:

April 20, 2009
7 PM
Lecture Hall Helmerich #219
Collins Business Building, The University of Tulsa
800 South Tucker Drive, Tulsa, OK 74104

In his provocative book "Agrarian Socialism in America: Marx, Jefferson, and Jesus in the Oklahoma Countryside, 1904-1920", Professor Bissett chronicles the rise and fall of the Socialist Party of Oklahoma during the first two decades of the twentieth century, when socialism in the United States enjoyed its golden age. To explain socialism's popularity in Oklahoma, Bissett looks back to the state's strong tradition of agrarian reform.

Drawing most of its support from working farmers, the Socialist Party of Oklahoma was rooted in such well-established organizations as the Farmers Alliance and the Indiahoma Farmers Union. And to broaden its appeal, the Party borrowed from the ideologies of both the American Revolution and Christianity. By making Marxism speak in American terms, the author argues, Party activists counteracted the prevailing notion that socialism was un-American.

Come hear Professor Bissett speak about this fascinating history and the lessons that can be drawn from it for 21st Century movement building.
Sponsored by the Social Science Interest Group of The University of Tulsa

Spell check turns Mormon leaders into apostates

It seems that spell-check programs ought to come with a consumer warning.

PROVO, Utah (AP) — Thousands of issues of Brigham Young University’s student newspaper were pulled from newsstands because a front-page photo caption misidentified leaders of the Mormon church as apostates instead of apostles.[...]-

An apostate is someone who abandons a previous loyalty (to a faith, movement, politcal party, cause, etcetera).

The newspaper staff retrieved as many of the 18,500 copies of the paper as possible and reprinted them with the correction. And it issued an apology to the apostles. The staff also explained how it happened: an error in spell-checking.

It started when a student misspelled the word “apostle” when writing the photo caption. When the caption was put through the editing software’s spell checker, it was flagged, and the editor accidentally clicked the first word that came up on the correct list: “apostate.” The mistake made it past two proofreaders before being sent off to the printing press.

Source: Associated Press, April 7, 2009 — Summarized by Religion News Blog

A few years, the Newton Kansas newspaper had a front page headline about an addition to the Pubic library.

A study with college students found that those using spell-check and grammar-check programs made more errors than those doing the job manually.

I've made my share of errors both ways. Proof-reading is one of the hardest tasks to do well.

Why is this President different?

A Sever at Tapped

the first African-American president of the United States, who will be hosting the first
ever Seder at the White House.

Read the whole thing.

Google to restirct Google Video

Google has this announcement on its Google Video website

In a few months, we will be discontinuing uploads on Google Video. Since this is a big change for our site, we wanted to make sure we answered your questions about it.

MORE

I had just begun to use Google video for longer videos that wouldn't fit in YouTube's 10 minute limit. Now I guess I will have to look into the other alternatives.

Flutter: the New Twitter

Triangle Fire and Rose Schneiderman's Speech

One of the greatest industrial tragedies in U.S. history occurred on March 25, 1911, when 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, died in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist company in New York City. The victims had been trapped by blocked exit doors and faulty fire escapes. The aftermath of the catastrophe brought grief and recriminations. Protest rallies and memorial meetings were held throughout the city. During one meeting at the Metropolitan Opera House, tension broke out between the working-class Lower East Siders who filled the galleries (and saw class solidarity as the ultimate solution to the problems of industrial safety) and the middle- and upper-class women in the boxes who sought reforms like creation of a bureau of fire prevention. The meeting would have broken up in disorder if not for a stirring speech by Rose Schneiderman, a Polish-born former hat worker who had once led a strike at the Triangle factory. Although she barely spoke above a whisper, Schneiderman held the audience spellbound.

---

I would be a traitor to those poor burned bodies, if I were to come here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public—and we have found you wanting.

The old Inquisition had its rack and its thumbscrews and its instruments of torture with iron teeth. We know what these things are today: the iron teeth are our necessities, the thumbscrews are the high-powered and swift machinery close to which we must work, and the rack is here in the firetrap structures that will destroy us the minute they catch fire.

This is not the first time girls have been burned alive in this city. Every week I must learn of the untimely death of one of my sister workers. Every year thousands of us are maimed. The life of men and women is so cheap and property is so sacred! There are so many of us for one job, it matters little if 140-odd are burned to death.

We have tried you, citizens! We are trying you now and you have a couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers and brothers and sisters by way of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable, the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us.

Public officials have only words of warning for us—warning that we must be intensely orderly and must be intensely peaceable, and they have the workhouse just back of all their warnings. The strong hand of the law beats us back when we rise—back into the conditions that make life unbearable.

I can’t talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. And the only way is through a strong working-class movement.

March Madness and My Brackets

Some people fill out massive numbers of brackets and then, I guess, toot the horn of their best guess.

I did two, the most I've ever done.

First round at KAKE-TV 22/32 (68%) high nationally had 30 of 32, high in the KAKE was 28/32. The KAKE brackets are done round by round. For the second round, you get to pick from all the first round wiiners. You're not shut out by first round losers.

Local 349 out of 641 44%
National 42,194 out of 80,042 44%

ESPN

23-9 1884738 our of 5+ million 59.30%

I picked Oklahoma to win everything, which wasn't a good pick according to Sports Daily and the other national broadcasters I've heard. I'm not an OU fan, unlike some friends. My thinking was this: Blake Griffin is the best player in the country. Sometimes that is enough. There was a little bit of Big-12 homer in that pick as well.

I have KU getting to the Sweet Sixteen, but then losing to Michigan State. That's a head not a heart pick.

By the way, I fall at about the 50% percentile between bracketologist and "I like their uniforms/mascots/nickname."

New Poll from Iraq

The BBC has released a new poll of Iraqis. This is an interesting, and encouraging, result showing a dramatic l increase in support for democracy and a decline in support for an Islamic state or a strong man.

Read the story here or download a PDF of the poll here.

The poll, it should be added, doesn't provide support for supporters of the war.

But war opponents should move beyond anti-war slogans and reflexes and really support the democratic trends and developments in Iraq.

State Treasure Dennis McKinney on the February Cash Flow Crisis

I should have put this up yesterday evening. The Eagle's WeBlog posted about McKinney's views on this today.