The Disturbing Brennan Appointment

It is such a relief to have a sane, intelligent person in charge again after the insanity of the last 8 years. Yet I have never held out hopes that Obama would radically up-end the status quo and implement policies progressive enough for my liking, such as drastically reducing the military budget and addressing structural economic inequality. His rhetoric on foreign policy is extremely hawkish (yes, even though he would talk with enemies). During the campaign, except for moderate progressive taxation, he never went near any number of things considered "too left" to even touch with a pole.

I can echo the sentiments of Glen Greenwald here:

I'm both entirely unsurprised and basically undisturbed by the fact that Obama's most significant appointments thus far are composed largely of standard Washington establishment figures and pro-Iraq-War hawks, and are devoid of people "on the Left". That is who Obama is -- he's an establishment politician who, with a few exceptions, is situated smack in the mainstream middle of the national Democratic Party. The mentor he sought out when arriving in the Senate was Joe Lieberman, who he then actively supported against Ned Lamont. The notion that Obama is some sort of aggressive or radical Leftist challenger of establishment power is and always was the by-product of fear-mongering from the Right and, to a lesser extent, the projected desires of some progressives. As I've said many times, I intend to wait and judge Obama on the policies he pursues, not the administrators he appoints to carry out those policies.

But John Brennan is a different matter. To appoint someone as CIA Director or Director of National Intelligence who was one of George Tenet's closest aides when The Dark Side of the last eight years was conceived and implemented, and who, to this day, continues to defend and support policies such as "enhanced interrogation techniques" and rendition (to say nothing of telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping), is to cross multiple lines that no Obama supporter should sanction.

One of Obama's first announced actions is the intention to close Gitmo--thank God! But John Brennan as CIA Director, you might as well re-open it in an ethical sense.

And everyone responsible for the revolting policies of torture needs to be prosecuted. No question.

Obama on economic stimulus

The President-elect's weekly address on economic stimulus.

Bush was despair, Obama is hope

The world is ecstatic.

NADA Appeal: You Helped Wall Street, Now Help Main Street

NADA (National Auto Dealer's Association) Chairman Annette Sykora is appealing directly to the nation's consumers in an "Open Letter" to the readers of USA Today. The "Open Letter" appears on page 8A of the News section in today's edition of the national newspaper; it also ran in yesterday's Boston Globe.

Auto Dealers: The Economic Engine of Main Street

Up to now, much of the discussion about a rescue plan for the automakers has focused on the Detroit Three: GM, Ford and Chrysler. But it's important not to lose sight of the economic engine of Main Street: the nation's 20,000 new car and truck dealers.

For generations, the nation's auto dealers have been the bellwether for the U.S. economy – accounting for almost 20 percent of all retail activity in the country, generating billions of dollars in state and local tax revenue.

In cities and towns across America, auto dealers are one of the anchors of their communities. When it comes to charity and philanthropy, they are second to none. When it comes to sponsoring the local Little League baseball teams and every other kind of endeavor that make up the fabric of a community, they are second to none. And don't forget child passenger safety. Auto dealers have inspected more than a million child safety seats as leaders of a national campaign to keep children, our most vulnerable passengers, safe.

Auto dealers directly employ 1.1 million people, more than the domestic automakers combined. In fact, in many communities across the country, the largest local employer is the auto dealership, with jobs in sales and service and parts and financing – good jobs that can't be outsourced.

But these jobs are in jeopardy. The real estate crisis and the Wall Street meltdown and the credit crunch have eroded consumer confidence. As a result, auto sales have suffered. In other words, the auto industry is part of the collateral damage. If we are to get the economy back on track, we must restore consumer confidence. Restoring stability to the auto industry is an important first step. Auto retailing is part of the solution to solving the economic crisis that we're now facing. The economic engine of the auto industry can help get this economy running on all cylinders again.

The federal government is already helping Wall Street.

Now it's time to help Main Street.

Atheist for president?

American culture strangely has a way of marginalizing just about everybody in some way. Political campaigns especially pull from some kind of internalized "normality" which represented the demographic face of the country years ago--white, rural or small town, protestant, working or middle class, moderate educational level (and of course, heterosexual). Who fits this mold any more? Ethnic minorities were always excluded. Now most of us (80%) live in metropolitan areas. Still, political candidates spend a lot of time at diners and VFW Halls.

In this election we heard about "real" America versus the elite. And scary Muslims. Obama couldn't "prove" his Christianity to satisfy some. Islam unfortunately has a wholesale connection with terrorism in many minds. But belief in God, the Christian God, is a necessary indicator of morality and patriotism.

Given my ethnicity and background, I meet just about all the Palin criteria for being a "real American," except that I'm excessively over-educated. Maybe you can chalk it up to all the higher education that I chucked the childhood Methodism and realized that I was an atheist all along. I never believed in god.

I've gradually become aware that people are horrified by atheism. Not too many people will admit that they don't believe in god. They'll waffle and say they're agnostic. Atheism is getting a hardcore reputation these days from people like Bill Maher and Sam Harris, who are anti-religion.

A reactionary stance like that is not too unusual in the face of prejudice. It's like being a Black Panther. Obviously, it's overkill and doesn't reflect more moderate beliefs. Well, maybe that's not obvious, because we don't hear from any other self-described atheists. We don't even think of there being a prejudice against atheism because we have a strong secular culture in place alongside the overtly religious, but consider this:

When the lion lies down with the lamb, when the president is a Republican Muslim and the Democratic speaker of the House is a vegan Mormon lesbian, when the secretary of defense is a Jain pacifist from the Green Party, they will all agree on one thing: atheists need not apply. A 2007 Gallup poll found that 53 percent of Americans would not vote for an atheist for president. (By contrast, only 43 percent wouldn't vote for a homosexual, and only 24 percent wouldn't vote for a Mormon.) As Ronald Lindsay, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, told me in an e-mail: "Atheism spells political death in this country."

Indeed. Only one current congressman has confessed to being an atheist: Rep. Pete Stark, a Democrat from the lefty East Bay region of Northern California. If he ever ran for president, he would need God's help just as surely as he wouldn't ask for it.

(15 to 20% of Americans still think that Obama is a Muslim. Some of them probably voted for him anyway. Would they vote for him if they thought he was an atheist?)

Are there more gays or atheists in the closet? There aren't any atheist pride parades. Or even "let's tolerate the atheists" discussions by pundits.

This Slate article briefly discusses morality and its connection or lack of to religion, and reports on how atheists in America, in contrast to those who live in atheist European states, are an unhappy bunch:

American atheists, by contrast, are often left out of community life. The studies that Brooks cites in Gross National Happiness, which find that the religious are happier and more generous then the secular, do not define religious and secular in terms of belief. They define it in terms of religious attendance. It is not hard to see how being left out of one of the dominant modes of American togetherness can have a corrosive effect on morality. As P.Z. Myers, the biologist and prominent atheist, puts it, "[S]cattered individuals who are excluded from communities do not receive the benefits of community, nor do they feel willing to contribute to the communities that exclude them."

The sorry state of American atheists, then, may have nothing to do with their lack of religious belief. It may instead be the result of their outsider status within a highly religious country where many of their fellow citizens, including very vocal ones like Schlessinger, find them immoral and unpatriotic. Religion may not poison everything, but it deserves part of the blame for this one.

Atheists, then, aren't getting the benefits of religious or civic community, and they are also experiencing the isolating effects of those on the receiving end of prejudice.

This description may only apply to the pure atheist who does not participate in any kind of spiritually. I have a spiritual practice, contrary to the stereotype of atheists, and have been part of several spiritual communities throughout the years. I wonder how many people fit this bill, but would not describe themselves as "atheists." Like "feminist" and "liberal," it's a label that most avoid, even if it applies.

60 Minutes Interview with Barack and Michelle

Nice interview. The first part is with Obama alone on serious issues. Later with Michelle. They leave you with a feeling that they such well-adjusted, down-to-earth people with priorities. (Barack, unfortunately, has developed a Joe Biden smile that he flashes incongruently at the end of some statements.) Man, it's nice to have a smart guy, i mean a really smart guy, running things.

Or soon to be running things. The so-called G-20 punted this weekend. The lame-duck Congress is going to do as little as possible. The Republicans are running around going, "Does the economy still make the Dems look good?" I'm still shocked when somebody acts out of the best interest of the country. Obama seems to have that mindset, believe it or not.

The Weekly Address of the President-Elect

President-elect Obama is giving a weekly address on YouTube.* You can subscribe to the channel for reminders. There are other videos produced from the Transition website change.gov. Since it was posted Friday night, 670,000 people have watched it.

*It seems that Obama is trading in the weekly radio address for the weekly YouTube address. I heard Susan Stamford earlier on NPR have a total hissy fit: radio, she thinks, compels you to be sincere.

Violence continues in Iraq but US withdrawal imminent

A disturbing picture of the body of a dead child killed in an explosion at the morgue of the general hospital in the northeastern town of Baquba about 60k from Baghdad.

I don't have the heart to actually post the picture, but we can't forget what is happening there.

The draft SOFA security pact approved today by the Iraqi cabinet requires coalition forces to withdraw from Iraqi cities and towns by the summer of 2009 and from the country by the end of 2011.

The US has 150,000 troops stationed in Iraq.

A lot less spam today!

Worldwide spam drops by TWO-THIRDS after an internet hosting service was taken offline!

Balance is bias

The public's frankly gotten frustrated with the convention of objectivity, the idea that you have to present both sides of the story, even if one side is completely bogus.

--Robert Niles, editor of Online Journalism Review

We better learn from Palin

Sarah Palin, discussing Africa as country or continent:

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars. Never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.

It might boost her cause if she said "Sudan" just once in there.

Snarky, you ask? Why, yes. Does it matter? (By it I mean the candidacy of Sarah Palin and whatever it is that she is doing now.) Yes. Andrew Sullivan says why very well.

McCain's nomination of Palin for VP, her candidacy and campaign crossed a line in American politics that shouldn't have been crossed. George W. Bush had dangerously low levels of knowledge and capability--and most of all, of introspection and decision-making based on reason rather than "gut." He was short on experience too--the governorship of Texas has a more limited role than other states. Sarah Palin busted even those low-bar barriers. Bush's presidency exceeded any expectations of disaster that could have been foretold. Yet so many Americans still exalt bravado and celebrate lack of intellectual ability, expertise and judgment, while allowing themselves to be manipulated by hot-button cultural issues like abortion and manufactured ones like elitism.

With the Bush/Cheney administration, we got cynical about being lied to, and accustomed to it, even if we knew how badly we were being treated. But Palin broke records for sheer chutzpah in telling lies. See The Daily Dish for a list of about 30 indisputable lies, large and small, uttered by Sarah Palin.

So much information was disseminated about the new candidate during the campaign that her corruption and cronyism in Alaskan government wasn't properly chewed and digested in popular discussion.

Charles Krauthammer, a conservative Palin realist, says she is smart, but if she wants to compete in 2012, she had better stay home for a couple years and "read."

The problem is, Palin doesn't know how much she doesn't know. And she doesn't seem to approach her deficits with humility. Can time cure that?

64% of Republicans pick Palin as top choice for their 2012 prez nominee, according to a Rasmussen poll taken last week. A majority of Americans may have thought that Palin was not qualified for the VP position, but she still ended the election with a 46-point favorable rating, in spite of a huge unfavorable rating. Palin should have been laughed off the stage. Instead, there is still a chunk of people apart from the rabid fans who think she's passable.

According to TPM: "Mike Wooten, the state trooper and former brother-in-law who Palin abused power over and lied about, is getting reassigned again because of continuing threats to his safety tied to Palin's nonsense."

Considering her vitriolic rhetoric and the wacko contingent she has fomented, I shouldn't have said "laughed off the stage." The vast majority of us should have been appalled enough to force her off the stage and left Alaskans to finish her off.

Yes, let them fail

A third perspective from David Brooks of the NY Times:

It is all a reminder that the biggest threat to a healthy economy is not the socialists of campaign lore. It’s C.E.O.’s. It’s politically powerful crony capitalists who use their influence to create a stagnant corporate welfare state.

If ever the market has rendered a just verdict, it is the one rendered on G.M. and Chrysler. These companies are not innocent victims of this crisis. To read the expert literature on these companies is to read a long litany of miscalculation. Some experts mention the management blunders, some the union contracts and the legacy costs, some the years of poor car design and some the entrenched corporate cultures.

Hybrids and Flex-fuel aren't big enough ideas

While Josh Marshall, below, is telling us to get creative with the leverage government may soon acquire over auto companies, Helena Cobban says to get realistic: we need infrastructure in order to give up our cars.

Thinking that turning to a mildly re-engineered version of the privately owned automobile will provide any kind of a longterm solution to the country's transportation woes is short-term thinking indeed. The nation that is economically and politically successful in 2050 will be one that has an efficient, multi-layered mass transit system that produces the minimal level of greenhouse gas emissions and offers a rich quality of life to all citizens.

There is no way that any version of privately owned automobiles can do that.

Funny, I was just making this comparison to my father the other day:

We need a strong and compelling vision of what a fully "inclusive" and efficient national transit system would look like-- and we also need a huge amount of investment to be poured into realizing it. Exactly similar to what Pres. Eisenhower did with the "interstate highway system" back in the 1950s-- but this time a vision based on mass transit, not on the private auto.

To reassure Dad, I told him we'd always need cars (you know, business is bad now). But wouldn't a massive burden be lifted if each household only had to maintain one car instead of two or three?

I've heard conservatives complain bitterly about subsidizing Amtrak, but I figure that's peanuts compared to tax dollars for roads. Yeah, roads. They're subsidized. We pay for the cars, and we pay for the roads. Why not pay less for a kick-ass public transit system? Day-to-day, I'd rather ride a motor bike around than drive, as long as I didn't have to fear being squashed.

Detroit, live or die

Considering that my father is a Chevrolet dealer, I ought to have an informed opinion on whether the government should authorize another massive loan to the Detroit "Big 3." But to be honest, I don't know enough about the industry or economics or precisely how perilous a situation we are in to say yea to bailout or nay.

I do have a small window into the retail side of the car business. We're hearing a lot about the effect a failure of GM or Ford or Chrysler would have on the manufacturing sector, and consequently on large sections of the country, particularly the midwest. Don't forget that post-manufacture, there's a huge workforce employed to deliver, sell, service and finance cars, all connected with the auto corporations. These people are also potentially impacted.

I don't know whether this is a good argument for loaning massive amounts of money to corporations which may ultimately founder (Chrysler might, GM and Ford make good cars now) and have a history of making bad decisions (bad quality for years, design didn't keep up, resistance to improving gas mileage, stubborn refusal to get serious about post-fossil fuel future). We seem to be having a very big accountability problem with bailout packages so far. Would bankruptcy and re-organizing be a better solution?

Josh Marshall of TPM addresses this from a different angle and kicks those in the butt who say unequivocally, let them die:

Quite a few readers are of the opinion either that the Big Three are ground central for global warming and/or they've spent thirty years making cars that can't compete with Japan, etc., so just let them fail. It's over. They've had their chance. It's done.

I have to tell you this just strikes me as nuts -- and beyond being nuts represents a great failure of imagination.

The auto industry -- directly and indirectly -- employs a ton of people. Even in ordinary times having that all gone down the tubes would mean a massive shock to the economy. If we can avoid having that happen now, why would we possibly let them happen in the face of what already promises to be a massive recession?

Second, on the question of the environment. There is no question that the internal combustion engine is at the heart of the climate crisis. But getting rid of Detroit won't get rid of cars. More to the point of creativity -- one of the things about crisis is that it opens opportunities would never exist in normal times. People have been looking for ways to get Detroit to get serious about developing cleaner, more fuel efficient cars for years. At this point, we're beyond that. We need to get serious about cars that don't use gas at all. If the whole domestic auto industry is all but asking to be taken into federal receivership, that tells me that the people running the federal government now have quite a lot of leverage.

I don't pretend to know the mechanics or precise solutions. But these are times that call for boldness -- and more than just boldness, which gets said a lot -- but creativity to rises [sic] to the challenge of the moment. [emphasis added]