Some inconvenient truths

I may discuss these issues at greater length later. Or I may not. Who knows. It’s pretty clear there’s little appetite for the truth, either at the elite level, at the blogging level, or at the popular level. People want to be told comforting lies and contrary to the old saying about how in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is very, very unwelcome. Getting things right, repeatedly, is exactly what most pundits avoid like the plague. Virtually every major pundit has been wrong about the majority of important issues, the majority of the time.

I guess that’s what people want.

It’s just a “larger scale” version of global warming denialism. Political-economic-environmental-social crisis denialism.

As for the fundraising to reward public option people in the House, folks forget that money is fungible. Every dollar raised for them is a dollar more than party organs and fundraisers can, and will, spend on Blue Dogs. Why? Because most progressive Reps are not in swing districts, they don’t need a lot of money.

now there’s a truth that will get you in trouble Ian — especially with your friends!

I’ve always found that particular fund drive offensive — its as if we have to keep paying off the politicians we help get into office in the first place in order to get them to keep their promises. Sorry, but that isn’t how its supposed to work. You make promises, we support you based on those promises, and you fulfill those promises if you get elected. IF keeping those promises leads to you being credibly challenged in the next election, we’ve got your back. But don’t suggest to us that we need to show you pre-emptive gratitude because you’re doing the job you’re supposed to do.

Instead, we’ve got a couple of hundred thousand that could be used to support primary challenges against Blue Dogs (and against Republicans in fall 2010) sitting in the coffers of “safe seat” Democrats.

Amen.

“I guess that’s what people want.”

We’ll see in 2010.

We live in a propaganda state. It’s also a complex society — people don’t begin to understand money, much less the concept of indirect taxation. The problems really took off when real wages started falling in the early 70s and people didn’t understand why. The propaganda was able shape the attitudes about power and money that today translate into “that’s what people want.”

But remember before condemning the populace too much, three quarters of Americans want government to see that they can get health care. (Polls and wonks assume that they understand what a “public option” is, but I think the only reliable finding from polls that ask about specifics is, “Should the government do something?” and the answer is “yes.”) However, the probability is that whether a bill is passed or not, government will not see that Americans can get health care.

And I think most Americans know it. When you know that the leaders of major institutions lie to you for their own benefit, I think it’s understandable to simply reject anything that doesn’t seem to be to your immediate benefit. And even in this case, the working class has continued to support Democrats, the supposedly more liberal party.

We can all get very discouraged over the political scene and the apparent apathy of most of our fellow citizens. But to simply write off the “popular level” is to give up on democracy, and I have real problems with that.

What’s becoming clear is that Obama traded away the public option early on to make a deal with the health care industry to continue funding Dems and not swing their weight to the GOP, similar to the deal he made with Wall Street.

The result is a massive rip-off of the middle class that is going to bite Dems hard when it hits the pocketbook. Most folks can be fooled by propaganda for awhile, but the pocketbook can’t be fooled in the long run. The Dems are hoping they can run this out beyond 2010 and 2012, but I judge the likelihood of that as fairly low.

Following up on what I just wrote:

Shrugging off Ayn Rand? Time to change course at the nation’s biz schools

Among the more compelling versions of this argument is Peter Navarro’s scathing Business Week article.  Navarro surveyed the top 50 business schools in 2008 and found most schools lack the three elements he considers key to graduating more than “quant jocks”: a sense of ethics and corporate social responsibility, a global perspective, and “soft skills” you don’t learn in lectures.  The Guardian also recently advocated for a much deeper curriculum in corporate social responsibility, ethics, and politics.

I can write whatever I want here, of course, but the audience is not that large, though I’m very happy with the quality of the people who were kind enough to keep reading me at a blog I update more or less at whim (many days between posts at times).

Well, first of all, Ian, if “too much of what is going on right now in the blogosphere is substandard pap” (it is) then you’re offering something, “unpalatable,” though it is, that people can’t get anywhere else. That’s valuable, in and of itself, even for a small audience (who will propagate it for you). But, also, your audience can snowball. (Glenn Greenwald started from nothing, I imagine.) Insightful quality writing—especially saying something that, once stated, seems irrefutably true (I’m thinking of your Cutting Through the Public Option BS post as an example)—is exceedingly rare, extremely valuable, and enormously attractive. People want to read stuff like that, even if they haven’t found you yet. Just my take.

Ian, I want to second what has been said above. There are many like myself who read and need the posts that you and a few others provide. I mean really need in a visceral way in order to remain connected and not fall into the trap of total apathy because of particular events and the times as it plays out in our country. I don’t comment much, but I find your site and a few others indespensable. I am ceratin that I am not alone in that regard.

It’s pretty clear there’s little appetite for the truth, either at the elite level, at the blogging level, or at the popular level. People want to be told comforting lies and contrary to the old saying about how in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is very, very unwelcome. Getting things right, repeatedly, is exactly what most pundits avoid like the plague. Virtually every major pundit has been wrong about the majority of important issues, the majority of the time.

I guess that’s what people want.

Okay, I hope I figured out (above) how to do a “blockquote”.

And, then, your long comment in the comments section…. which really is important in terms of where you may or may not go from here. I don’t want to say something that does not address the seriousness of the issue you have raised. So, I gotta think about what I might say next, or if indeed I have any practical ideas to offer.

Nonetheless, I’m here because I searched you out!

Ezra Klein on divisions in the WH. Not looking good.

Ian!!! Thank you for your long response above (below is link to that comment of yours)
https://www.ianwelsh.net/some-inconvenient-truths/#comment-1664

You said “but when you look at how they’ve gone about this, the pieces fit”.

!!! see !!! the pieces fit for you and Stirling. Because of your acumen and expertise. I can smell the stink of a lot of this, but this particular part of the whole mess is something that NEVER occurred to me! And, likely not to many others who don’t have your background and expertise.

fwiw, my take is that a further exposition of this would be a great topic for another post. I’m trying to come up with an appropriate analogy/ metaphor- so, my “off the cuff” try will probably be stupid. “So, I’m a dog owner, and I don’t know anything about cats. But, I now have a cat. You have to explain to me that cats don’t like to walk on leashes.” Oh, never mind. 😉

And could I ask a question that is a bit off the wall?

There was a time when newspapers syndicated people we regard as models of wit and insight. I think of Mencken although I doubt most would consider him a “serious journalist” , possibly more of a satirist. The Op Ed regulars at the NYT are another example. Newspapers are dying and internet blogging sort-of replaces them (at least for me—the mix of online media from the giants and the commentary by a variety of commenters and bloggers at my favorite sites). Huffington Post tries (tried) to arrange a rotating schedule of guest bloggers, but emphasizes too many traditional pundits and entertainers to suit me; still it might not be a bad idea to have a rotating schedule of high calibre / regular guest bloggers to post in one place. Is this the sort of thing you and Stirling are thinking about?

What “just a reader” said.

I have only recently stumbled on to this site – and am sorting through a number of old ones that are moving right, left and in between.

I can imagine my dream blog – Ian, Anglachel, Lambert, Stirling and Paul and, never to be forgotten, Arthur Silber. I would PAY for this dream.

I cannot express my appreciation personally, but just know that all of you keep some of us sane.

Cost controls for citizens is not the point, cost control for the government is.

100% agreement, but there’s more to come on cost control for govt, unless they chicken out. They’ve been pushing hard to get Medicare financing out of the jurisdiction of Senate Finance and into the hands of an independent panel. They’ve specified a mandate of “reducing regional variation in outcomes for similar spending levels” which is to say, costs and treatment frequency are higher in areas w/a lot of poor seniors w/ multiple chronic conditions. In MA, they just decided to switch to “global payments,” another name for managed care, which, of course, failed in the 90s due to the lack of incentive to provide care. It just has a new name now.

If fee-for-service is a cost problem, I worry about what happens when you swing the pendulum in the other direction. When the govt sets targets, there’s incredible pressure, and the poor/sick/elderly are actors of low/no political status.

I also read you and Stirling on BOPNews and spent considerable time tracking you guys down when you disbanded the blog. Unlike many others, I do have some money to spare and would be delighted to contribute if there were a DONATE button or something similar.

I would have preferred something like FDR’s one hundred days, but keep in mind that at this point in the Clinton presidency we were still bogged down with gays in the military. At this point in GW Bush’s presidency we were bogged down, with, what, the do not call list?

Its probably a function that modern politicians just want to be in office, not to do anything with it, but it seems that modern administrations don’t get defined until one or two years in.

While its looking like Obama is just going to be a one term caretaker between two quite reactionary Republican administrations, some caution is in order. At the moment it looks like we will get nothing or worse in terms of legislation and that the bailout has stopped the slide into Great Depression 2. But really no one will know for sure until another two to six months have passed. So there is a kind of unreal stasis in the political landscape.

I don’t want Ian to stop blogging, but I actually think it would be a good idea for him to take a break. It doesn’t look like he will miss much for a couple of months. Of course there may be an election in Canada, and he might want to blog about that and take his mind off of US politics for awhile. There was also a fairly important election in Japan, that has attracted not much notice here.

Just chiming in to say that I also love your work and have come to rely on it a lot, so I’d miss it if you stopped… but I can certainly understand wanting to focus where you do the most good.

The Medicare Part D idea is fascinating, though bizarre. It’s certainly a plausible thesis, but the question becomes: why? What’s the objective here? He papers over Medicare by taxing the poor, and in so doing alienates a third to half of his party and squanders months of his first term and enormous amounts of political capital. If big Pharma et al get their money either way, what’s this all for? Another shallow, meaningless tic in the ‘Win’ column?

I’ve seen some speculation that this whole fight is a con game to keep the insurance lobby’s money in Dem hands for 2010… do you think the objective might simply be to completely entangle the corporate interests with Dem lobbyists and politicians? Make things so complicated and chaotic that the cash never stops flowing, while building up a network of influence peddlers?

Re: Ian Welsh @

I feel that people like myself and my friend Stirling (and some others) offer something that most a-list blogs are not offering today: a fundamental honesty that includes minimal spin or kabuki, a good track record, and an emphasis on explaining the bigger picture of why things are the way they are. But it’s unlikely that’s viable as any sort of living, no reasonable level of traffic + ads alone will make it viable.

I really haven’t noticed anyone making a go of this on the left. A few on the right seem to have thanks to either grants or some form of external financing. Most people don’t seem to be willing to pay for online content.

What you do, and I do on my better days, is break a subject down and explain it. While people may find that interesting to read, I don’t think many people find it necessary. My traffic certainly reflects that.

Anyway, I hope you find a way to stay in this business (if you’ll pardon the misuse of that word). I’d miss you if you weren’t here.

Now perhaps I should just assign it to the hobby category, like many folks do, and I’m considering that seriously. But if I do so, I suspect I may go the way of many others I’ve known who blogged hobbywise—after a while, even the really good ones drifted off to something else.

As you know, I drifted off from blogging, particularly my own blog. But that was not only because I had real-life things to do, but also because I need dialogue to stimulate the bloggy juices, even to maintain a semi-part-time writing schedule. It became a paradox because you need to be a regular writer to get a regular readership, and I needed a regular readership to be a regular writer.

When you, Kevin, and I were blogging at Tilting at Windmills, I was able to keep up the pace, but when it came time for me to hold the fort briefly alone, I found it very hard to do. As I recall. It’s become a bit far away now, sadly, especially since the archives are down.

Since then I’ve stuck to Canadian discussion boards and dropping comments around the US blogosphere. It’s been really hard to find a bloggy place for myself, especially since (as you know) I have an inner rhetorical Molotov-cocktail thrower that sometimes itches to get out. And a tendency to question to motivation behind skepticism even if I may share it at times, or go even further.

dbhelix, I agree with the substance of your comments but your initial comment that seniors are not a powerful political force still I dispute. The problem here is that seniors hear that Medicare is going to “cut” in health reform, and even if they are aware of the rationale they don’t trust it. Moreover, most seniors are wonks, and they just hear the possibility of cutting Medicare or shifting funds, and they react loudly and predictably.

The Dem leadership tends to be too wonky and both Clinton and Obama are wonks. This is good for policy but terrible for politics. Things like this are sinking the possibility of real health care reform in this administration. The first rule of politics is KISS, and this is anything but simple. The problem is that when that happens, people simplify anyway, and that’s what seniors are doing now. Seniors overwhelmingly oppose reform because they already have Medicare and don’t want politicians messing with it.

Ian, I’m older than you, or most of this “Ian Welsh” community. At least my long term memory is still pretty much intact. Your writing has the power & force of a young Christopher Hitchens, the one that so eloquently defended the wronged and powerless – before he yielded to the “Commentary Crowd”, for whatever his reasons. That’s why I keep returning.

Use this blessed gift of yours. and great things will happen, often in asymmetrical & surprising ways.

>>there is only so much free writing I’m still willing to do

Yet Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly make millions of dollars a year.

That one comparison alone shows the firm commitment of the right wing to spread their poison, and the total lack of commitment from the so-called left to spread sanity.

Oh, and I’m a senior citizen who’s fairly wonkish. Don’t go making generalizations you can’t back up, tjfxh.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

I listened to brief snippets of NPR today. The first was one about campaign finance reform an some case in front of the Supreme Court. One astroturfy lady was being interviewed, and she argued that Virginia and California are both states without limits on corporate involvement in state elections, but they are really very different states, and that means that corporate involvement in electoral politics has no real effect, and therefore there is no need for campaign finance reform. In fact, it is a pernicious perversion of free speech (cue link to my Freeze Peach/Danish cartoons post from TAW…).

A caller phoned in and in his own folksy way agreed with her, and all too soon it became likely to me that he was also astroturf—UAW astroturf, this time, but the UAW is also opposed to campaign finance reform.

Later I heard a couple of interviews on health care reform. One was, bless his heart, Ezra Klein. Now I really am blessing his heart, because he pointed out how odd it was that bipartisanship is so important that *any* Republican must be recruited to pass *anything*, when the Democratic Party itself is so clearly on the line when it comes to health care reform. Olympia Snowe, in this case. (I love her name, it is so evocative.) Anyway, no kidding, about the odd part.

But he was followed by an AEI fellow who thought that Obama/Biden/Emanuel’s strategy on health care reform was brilliant. He then proceeded to explain to us exactly how progressive Democrats in the House would be brought to heel even to vote for a bill that didn’t contain a smidgen of a public option. It was very plausible.

So now you know: the AEI approves of Obama’s strategy.

By the way, the justification for “bipartisanship” is that without it, the reelection chances of someone named “Blanche Lincoln” (what is this, a knock-off of Gone With the Wind?) would be imperilled. The people of r-Kansas, you see, arrived in drably-coloured starships hundreds of hears ago from the Neutral Planet (I wish there were more of this episode on YouTube).

You see, large numbers of them may have a denied surgery claim, but by golly, they will have balance.

Obama is just Bush done “nice”.

Yep, totally agree. I was trying to come up with something to add, like “style without substance”, but that sounds way too mild.

The only pithy comment that comes to mind is too rude to post. I’ll email it to you, Ian.

I am reminded of my feelings about the Iraq invasion- I knew from the get go it would be bad, a really bad idea. I just didn’t know how bad it would be.

I knew from the get go that “Obama” was not trustworthy (I mean during primaries) I just didn’t know how untrustworthy/ bad he would turn out to be.

Sigh.

Hi Ian- just to pile on with the love- but at this point there are very few blogs I check religiously. Uh, regularly. Always worth my time to read your words, and also the comment section here. It’s a “twofer”. Some blogs have dropped off my reading list (ones I used to check frequently, like, uh, a few years back), in part because I got tired of wading through inane comments. So…. Ian, your thoughtful writing seems also to invite read-worthy comments. Kudos.

nice post, Ian.

snort, it’s like bloggy-radi-lefty Old Home night, at this blog. so funny to see so many from so many places here lauding you. of course you deserve it, but i’m just giggling a tad at our self selection. it’s amusing.