Now don't get me wrong here; this is not a post to beat up on the military or on soldiers. But this video (which is not for the faint of heart):
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/04/05/4117730-wikileaks-posts-combat-video-from-iraq-showing-civilian-casualties
...is really disturbing. In it, US soldiers in Baghdad in 2007 engage and kill a bunch of Iraqis who were apparently not a threat and were not even Bad Guys, including shooting up the van of Good Samaritans that tried to help the wounded.
Now it's impossible for me to fully understand the pressures faced by American soldiers occupying a foreign land with hostile people hiding everywhere. I can understand how some guys get jumpy and shoot first, asking questions later. I'm not looking to skewer these soldiers.
But what about their commanders who covered up these killings? It was pretty clear in the aftermath of this incident that a horrible mistake was made and innocent people were killed (there were two children in the van badly injured- they were being brought to school by their father). But the military claimed that all the dead were insurgents, except for two Reuters photographers. Look at the video- it's pretty obvious that's not the case.
I guess what this reminds me about most of all is that we shouldn't take military accounts of war actions at face value without independent confirmation. Top military brass have been lying in the US and everywhere else since the beginning of time, and they're not going to stop now.
And where's the media? We've barely heard a whisper about this in the mainstream press- this is a big story!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Email Throwdown! (posted by DT)
I thought I would share with you my loyal readers one of the lengthy email chains that we have been involved in. What follows is an edited and hopefully readable version of an exchange about the general issue of fairness and tax policies. I've taken out names to protect the politically innocent:
From JB:
The general question I have is, where is it written that life is supposed to be fair? Actually, life not being fair is what motivates a lot of people to success....and it builds character too. Secondly, if fairness is something that we should strive to achieve for all, why is it fair that those in the higher brackets are paying 60% oftheir money in taxes, and the government wants them to pay even more? Why is it fair that living in the northeast in order to afford a house and a family, and live like people in the rest of the country, you needto make 75%-100% more? Why is it fair that my buddy in Texas lives in a house just like mine and it cost him 1/3 the price of mine, but my taxes are higher because i make more? Meanwhile he probably can buy much more with the money he makes in Texas? When you start playing the "fair" card, it is a very slippery and dangerous slope - none of it is fact based, it is purely emotional andby definition will create inequities for someone else.
My Response:
I think that it would be nice if life were always fair, though of course impossible. I believe that when government can make life more fair (by, to take an uncontroversial example, enforcing laws against robbing and killing people) it should consider doing so. Some unfairness can't be solved by government (like, for example, gov'tcan't stop a child from being born with cerebral palsy), but can be ameliorated (gov't could make sure that that child's family can still afford health care). I think people's motivation is DECREASED by unfairness- if I know that because my parents can't afford college and because there's no financial aid, I have virtually no chance of going to college, I may not bother studying hard, accepting my fate as a low-wage worker. I'd be much more motivated to improve my situation if I felt like I had a fair chance to succeed. As for the tax issue, the more people make the more they should pay in taxes. It doesn't seem like our progressive tax system has stopped high wage-earners from working lately. As for the problem of your house being worth less than your buddy inTexas, that's one of the fairness issues the gov't should not try tosolve. You're welcome to move to Texas if you want, so it's really not unfair at all. That's not quite the same as the parent whose kid has cerebral palsy- can't exactly give him back.
JB respondes:
I am not sure if you have ready any Thomas Sowell - an African American who grew up in Harlem, pennyless, but went to MIT and has become a brilliant economist. He talks a lot about the same general principles that [another correspondent] touched on, how people need to be motivated to improve their own situation. Too much of our society is inherently lazy and does not produce for the greater good. This government is continuing to move in the direction of enabling this behavior, making indiviuals reliant on handouts, rather than motivating. Now, from the perspective on the top of the food chain: as the government continues to take and redistribute, those who create the jobs become less motivated to continue to do so, as they see less and less return on their own invested capital. By de-incentivizing these individuals, it has a spiraling effect on the whole system. With less motivation on the top of the food chain, there is fewer trickle down effect and everyone loses. Since we can both agree that life unto itself is not fair, the governments role is not and should never be to determine winners and losers i.e. fairness. When you take away more money from the top, and give it to the poor, that is exactly what the government IS doing, it is choosing to whom it wants to be fair, and to whom it wants to be unfair. Your thought is, why shouldnt the government be able to make things more fair for some. My question is why should the government be allowed to make things unfair for others. Everything has a cost to society, there are no free lunches.
Me again:
I find your position a maximalist one, that's all. As I see it, gov't can't do everything, but it also can do SOMETHING. The current conservative argument is that gov't can't do a damn thing and shouldn't even try (except use its military to kill lots of foreigners of course). I agree with you that taxes and redistribution can get too high and lead to the things you fear- a sinking economy that helps nobody. I just don't think that's a big danger with current tax rates, or even with Clinton-era tax rates. The economy was running pretty well during most of the '90s, with higher taxes than in the 2000s. I just don't see evidence that going back to those tax rates would be harmful. I'm not arguing that we should go back to 1970s tax rates, which I believe included a 91% marginal rate at the top- that's too high. My position on taxes isn't really radical based on recent US history. What's radical is the current Republican fixation on tax cuts ad infinitum. It is completely impossible to solve the deficit problem without revenue hikes; so when I hear absolute refusal to raise any tax rates, I can only conclude that you're not really serious about the deficit.
JB:
The one piece that you are missing from the Clinton era (I actually really like Bill Clinton) is the growth of the economy. The taxes issue is a much bigger drag on the economy now, since we are not seeing the economic growth, growth in worker productivity, wage growth that we saw in the 90's. Couple that with the reset of the Bush era tax cuts (that not enough people are talking about) and we are all really about to feel this pinch on our wallets. So, its not the tax rates that are the problem in a vaccum, it is the tax rates combined with the spending increases on top of more taxes yet to come with the absence of economic growth that does not provide a lot of optimism for the future.
Me:
To me the key point here about the Clinton years is that, as you say, tax rates "in a vacuum" aren't the only thing that matters. I agree with you. But I don't hear anything else coming from the Right except talk about tax cuts. The '90s certainly showed that the economy can grow with tax rates higher than we have now. The 2000s certainly showed that tax cuts alone don't necessarily produce growth (we had the lowest taxes since I don't know when, and we had the first presidency ever during which the economy didn't grow at all from 2001-2009).So I think we've dispensed with the argument that tax cuts are what the economy needs. Now the argument we're left with for tax cuts is: "it's my money, the government shouldn't be taking it", i.e. the moral one. Certainly that's the one stressed by [another correspondent], and it's a legitimate point of view. But let's face it, tax cuts have not correlated with economic growth over the last 20 years. We have to keep the deficit argument and the tax rate argument separate, which seems hard to do in this debate. HCR does not increase the deficit- why? Because it raises some taxes to pay for itself. And moderate tax hikes don't appear to wreck the economy- the argument against them is just the moral one. Now the moral argument for less taxes is fine, but it's of course impervious to data so I don't know that we can have a very illuminating debate about it.
From JB:
The general question I have is, where is it written that life is supposed to be fair? Actually, life not being fair is what motivates a lot of people to success....and it builds character too. Secondly, if fairness is something that we should strive to achieve for all, why is it fair that those in the higher brackets are paying 60% oftheir money in taxes, and the government wants them to pay even more? Why is it fair that living in the northeast in order to afford a house and a family, and live like people in the rest of the country, you needto make 75%-100% more? Why is it fair that my buddy in Texas lives in a house just like mine and it cost him 1/3 the price of mine, but my taxes are higher because i make more? Meanwhile he probably can buy much more with the money he makes in Texas? When you start playing the "fair" card, it is a very slippery and dangerous slope - none of it is fact based, it is purely emotional andby definition will create inequities for someone else.
My Response:
I think that it would be nice if life were always fair, though of course impossible. I believe that when government can make life more fair (by, to take an uncontroversial example, enforcing laws against robbing and killing people) it should consider doing so. Some unfairness can't be solved by government (like, for example, gov'tcan't stop a child from being born with cerebral palsy), but can be ameliorated (gov't could make sure that that child's family can still afford health care). I think people's motivation is DECREASED by unfairness- if I know that because my parents can't afford college and because there's no financial aid, I have virtually no chance of going to college, I may not bother studying hard, accepting my fate as a low-wage worker. I'd be much more motivated to improve my situation if I felt like I had a fair chance to succeed. As for the tax issue, the more people make the more they should pay in taxes. It doesn't seem like our progressive tax system has stopped high wage-earners from working lately. As for the problem of your house being worth less than your buddy inTexas, that's one of the fairness issues the gov't should not try tosolve. You're welcome to move to Texas if you want, so it's really not unfair at all. That's not quite the same as the parent whose kid has cerebral palsy- can't exactly give him back.
JB respondes:
I am not sure if you have ready any Thomas Sowell - an African American who grew up in Harlem, pennyless, but went to MIT and has become a brilliant economist. He talks a lot about the same general principles that [another correspondent] touched on, how people need to be motivated to improve their own situation. Too much of our society is inherently lazy and does not produce for the greater good. This government is continuing to move in the direction of enabling this behavior, making indiviuals reliant on handouts, rather than motivating. Now, from the perspective on the top of the food chain: as the government continues to take and redistribute, those who create the jobs become less motivated to continue to do so, as they see less and less return on their own invested capital. By de-incentivizing these individuals, it has a spiraling effect on the whole system. With less motivation on the top of the food chain, there is fewer trickle down effect and everyone loses. Since we can both agree that life unto itself is not fair, the governments role is not and should never be to determine winners and losers i.e. fairness. When you take away more money from the top, and give it to the poor, that is exactly what the government IS doing, it is choosing to whom it wants to be fair, and to whom it wants to be unfair. Your thought is, why shouldnt the government be able to make things more fair for some. My question is why should the government be allowed to make things unfair for others. Everything has a cost to society, there are no free lunches.
Me again:
I find your position a maximalist one, that's all. As I see it, gov't can't do everything, but it also can do SOMETHING. The current conservative argument is that gov't can't do a damn thing and shouldn't even try (except use its military to kill lots of foreigners of course). I agree with you that taxes and redistribution can get too high and lead to the things you fear- a sinking economy that helps nobody. I just don't think that's a big danger with current tax rates, or even with Clinton-era tax rates. The economy was running pretty well during most of the '90s, with higher taxes than in the 2000s. I just don't see evidence that going back to those tax rates would be harmful. I'm not arguing that we should go back to 1970s tax rates, which I believe included a 91% marginal rate at the top- that's too high. My position on taxes isn't really radical based on recent US history. What's radical is the current Republican fixation on tax cuts ad infinitum. It is completely impossible to solve the deficit problem without revenue hikes; so when I hear absolute refusal to raise any tax rates, I can only conclude that you're not really serious about the deficit.
JB:
The one piece that you are missing from the Clinton era (I actually really like Bill Clinton) is the growth of the economy. The taxes issue is a much bigger drag on the economy now, since we are not seeing the economic growth, growth in worker productivity, wage growth that we saw in the 90's. Couple that with the reset of the Bush era tax cuts (that not enough people are talking about) and we are all really about to feel this pinch on our wallets. So, its not the tax rates that are the problem in a vaccum, it is the tax rates combined with the spending increases on top of more taxes yet to come with the absence of economic growth that does not provide a lot of optimism for the future.
Me:
To me the key point here about the Clinton years is that, as you say, tax rates "in a vacuum" aren't the only thing that matters. I agree with you. But I don't hear anything else coming from the Right except talk about tax cuts. The '90s certainly showed that the economy can grow with tax rates higher than we have now. The 2000s certainly showed that tax cuts alone don't necessarily produce growth (we had the lowest taxes since I don't know when, and we had the first presidency ever during which the economy didn't grow at all from 2001-2009).So I think we've dispensed with the argument that tax cuts are what the economy needs. Now the argument we're left with for tax cuts is: "it's my money, the government shouldn't be taking it", i.e. the moral one. Certainly that's the one stressed by [another correspondent], and it's a legitimate point of view. But let's face it, tax cuts have not correlated with economic growth over the last 20 years. We have to keep the deficit argument and the tax rate argument separate, which seems hard to do in this debate. HCR does not increase the deficit- why? Because it raises some taxes to pay for itself. And moderate tax hikes don't appear to wreck the economy- the argument against them is just the moral one. Now the moral argument for less taxes is fine, but it's of course impervious to data so I don't know that we can have a very illuminating debate about it.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Outlook for midterm elections (posted by DT)
Sorry I haven't posted in a while; I've been engaged in an extensive off-line email debate with a true Right-wing nut case, and frankly it's exhausting. I'll try to put a post together with that material when I get the chance.
But here's a quick hitter: it's generally accepted that the Democrats are going to lose a lot of seats in November, and possibly even lose control of the House. I'm surprised at how much this is accepted by my favorite bloggers on the Left, and I guess that's where the data leads.
Now it's almost always the case that the party in control of the Presidency loses seats at the midterm election. This year one would expect that even more, because the Democrats are basically at the high-water mark; they won everything in 2008, including lots of seats in traditional Republican areas, which can't all be kept now. Meanwhile there's just nothing left to take- Republicans after 2008 were basically left with mostly just their "rump" areas, none of which are going Democrat any time soon.
Still, I don't think pessimism is in order here. We'll lose seats, for reasons stated above, but if the economy is improved by November and if liberals can win some rhetorical battles around the good things in the Health Care law, I'd like to think the damage won't be catastrophic.
I'm probably overly optimistic, but that's how I feel today.
But here's a quick hitter: it's generally accepted that the Democrats are going to lose a lot of seats in November, and possibly even lose control of the House. I'm surprised at how much this is accepted by my favorite bloggers on the Left, and I guess that's where the data leads.
Now it's almost always the case that the party in control of the Presidency loses seats at the midterm election. This year one would expect that even more, because the Democrats are basically at the high-water mark; they won everything in 2008, including lots of seats in traditional Republican areas, which can't all be kept now. Meanwhile there's just nothing left to take- Republicans after 2008 were basically left with mostly just their "rump" areas, none of which are going Democrat any time soon.
Still, I don't think pessimism is in order here. We'll lose seats, for reasons stated above, but if the economy is improved by November and if liberals can win some rhetorical battles around the good things in the Health Care law, I'd like to think the damage won't be catastrophic.
I'm probably overly optimistic, but that's how I feel today.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Why is Bipartisanship Dead? (posted by DT)
So the Health Care Reform bill is now behind us, barring an unlikely bit of judicial activism from the Supreme Court. One more post-mortem (maybe not the last- there's a lot rattling around in my brain):
Can serious people please dispense with the "Obama hasn't delivered on his bipartisanship promise" and even the "pox on both your houses" argument about why Democrats and Republicans can't get along in Washington? I get why Republican politicians put out that spin, but it would be nice if the rest of the media would leave Fox News pundits alone and stop repeating their talking points.
What do you mean, DT? The Dems passed a Health Care Reform bill without a single Republican vote? What could be more partisan? True enough, but we have to look with some depth at the facts of the policy before we slice up the Blame Pie for this. The HCR bill is a moderate bill; it's nearly identical to the Massachusetts bill that was passed with the enthusiastic support of Mitt Romney, with the help of Scott Brown's affirmative vote. (When Brown was asked about this in the recent Senatorial campaign he said he opposed Obamacare not because it was different from the MA bill, but because MA already has a good system and he didn't want to subsidize other states doing it). Olympia Snowe voted in favor of almost exactly the same bill in committee. The individual mandate, which Republicans are now calling unconstitutional, has been in numerous past Health Care plans proposed by them. HCR ended up much closer to past Republican plans than liberals wanted- there's no single payor, there's no public option, there's no socialization of anything- if you look at the actual bill, it's just not that radical.
So what happened? The Republican leadership made a decision to refuse any compromise whatsoever. They decided that if the Dems want it, then we'll oppose it. Democrats reportedly offered during the negotiations to put in Malpractice Reform, a provision that conservatives have been agitating for, but when they asked Republicans they were reportedly told that they wanted it, but still would have to vote against the full bill. So there's an idea that liberals have no big problem with, but which results in loss of support of trial lawyers. Democrats were willing to forgo that support to gain some Republicans, but found it wouldn't deliver any votes!
So I know I'm a partisan; I plead guilty there. But let's face it; in this case Republicans have decided to fight instead of compromise. Maybe there will be change on future issues (banking reform? Can't wait for that one), but the blame for partisanship in HCR has to be put on the GOP.
Can serious people please dispense with the "Obama hasn't delivered on his bipartisanship promise" and even the "pox on both your houses" argument about why Democrats and Republicans can't get along in Washington? I get why Republican politicians put out that spin, but it would be nice if the rest of the media would leave Fox News pundits alone and stop repeating their talking points.
What do you mean, DT? The Dems passed a Health Care Reform bill without a single Republican vote? What could be more partisan? True enough, but we have to look with some depth at the facts of the policy before we slice up the Blame Pie for this. The HCR bill is a moderate bill; it's nearly identical to the Massachusetts bill that was passed with the enthusiastic support of Mitt Romney, with the help of Scott Brown's affirmative vote. (When Brown was asked about this in the recent Senatorial campaign he said he opposed Obamacare not because it was different from the MA bill, but because MA already has a good system and he didn't want to subsidize other states doing it). Olympia Snowe voted in favor of almost exactly the same bill in committee. The individual mandate, which Republicans are now calling unconstitutional, has been in numerous past Health Care plans proposed by them. HCR ended up much closer to past Republican plans than liberals wanted- there's no single payor, there's no public option, there's no socialization of anything- if you look at the actual bill, it's just not that radical.
So what happened? The Republican leadership made a decision to refuse any compromise whatsoever. They decided that if the Dems want it, then we'll oppose it. Democrats reportedly offered during the negotiations to put in Malpractice Reform, a provision that conservatives have been agitating for, but when they asked Republicans they were reportedly told that they wanted it, but still would have to vote against the full bill. So there's an idea that liberals have no big problem with, but which results in loss of support of trial lawyers. Democrats were willing to forgo that support to gain some Republicans, but found it wouldn't deliver any votes!
So I know I'm a partisan; I plead guilty there. But let's face it; in this case Republicans have decided to fight instead of compromise. Maybe there will be change on future issues (banking reform? Can't wait for that one), but the blame for partisanship in HCR has to be put on the GOP.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Defense Spending (posted by DT)
Back in the '70s and '80s I remember that liberals wanted to decrease spending on the military; my recollection was that this was one of the issues that the Left agreed about for the most part. Then Reagan increased defense spending even more and the accepted narrative is that this drove the Soviet Union out of existence. And I have to admit that, much as I am a Reagan-hater, it's probably true: the Soviet economy couldn't keep up with us in an arms race, and trying to do so was a factor in their whole enterprise going south.
So I'll accept that high defense spending in the 1980s was good for the US. But how about now? The US spends almost twice as much as the next-highest spender per capita on defense. Why? There's no Soviet Union now.
When we talk about ways to decrease spending, why is the military always off the table?
(chart is from Matt Yglesias- sorry if it's hard to read, I'm just learning this stuff)
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Financial Ruin! (posted by DT)
Well the Wall Street Journal crowd, which includes most of the conservatives I know, has been predicting economic catastrophe if the Health Care Bill passes. OK, that's a little strong, but a common argument I've heard is that it will slow productivity in the US economy. So I would expect that the week when HCR finally passes, we would see that the Smart People who follow stocks for a living and whose livelihood depends on accuracy, selling off stocks since the economy is about to decline.
But lo and behold, the stock market is holding steady this week! The Dow Jones is higher at the end of today than it was on Monday morning!
Now I'm not saying that this proves HCR will help the economy. I know that tons of factors feed into stock market performance. I'm just saying that while conservative politicians and pundits and radio talk show hosts predict terrible things for the economy with the socialists in charge, the people whose livelihood depends on being right about the future seem to have at least a little confidence.
But lo and behold, the stock market is holding steady this week! The Dow Jones is higher at the end of today than it was on Monday morning!
Now I'm not saying that this proves HCR will help the economy. I know that tons of factors feed into stock market performance. I'm just saying that while conservative politicians and pundits and radio talk show hosts predict terrible things for the economy with the socialists in charge, the people whose livelihood depends on being right about the future seem to have at least a little confidence.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Torture Apologists (posted by DT)
Marc Thiessen, a Bush speechwriter with no training in journalism or in interrogation procedure, has written a book explaining why torture has kept us safe. This take-down from a real journalist is pretty good, and not too long:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/03/29/100329crbo_books_mayer?printable=true
Bottom line: torture is not a useful tactic to gain intelligence, and there is no credible evidence that torture has stopped a single terrorist attack from happening.
What torture has helped to do is change our country from one that is seen as the "good guys" into one seen by others as a cruel bully. It's helped Muslim extremists recruit. In short it's a shande.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/03/29/100329crbo_books_mayer?printable=true
Bottom line: torture is not a useful tactic to gain intelligence, and there is no credible evidence that torture has stopped a single terrorist attack from happening.
What torture has helped to do is change our country from one that is seen as the "good guys" into one seen by others as a cruel bully. It's helped Muslim extremists recruit. In short it's a shande.
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