Occupy Wall Street

OK, fans, I know you're all dying to read what I think about Occupy Wall Street, so here it is.

The rage that I share with the protesters can be summed up this way:

Once there was a healthy economy.  Then a few things happened, in this order:

1. The financial system was deregulated to a great degree, and what regulation there was was poorly enforced. 
2. Wall Street bankers used these rules to take enormous risks using irresponsible amounts of leverage, while everyone in the industry assured us they knew what they were doing.
3. The result was a huge real estate bubble that allowed the banks to make enormous profits, far greater than the industry had ever made before.
4. In spite of these profits, the general economy didn't benefit much at all.  There was virtually no wage or job growth for the middle class during the aughts.
5. When the bubble burst, the taxpayers were forced to step in and bail out the industry.  This was necessary to save us from another Great Depression, but was structured in a way that returned banks to profitability almost immediately.  They are already back to record profits, while the general economy continues to suffer.
6. The banking industry is now firmly opposed to any regulation of any kind, and has withdrawn support from the Democratic party for suggesting it.  The industry seems to have no particular plan to avoid a repeat of 2008, since they don't want anything to change.  This apparently means that their plan is to go back to the good old days, and when the next disaster happens, we get to bail them out again.  It's "heads I win, tails you lose".

So yeah, some of us are kind of angry with Bankers.  OWS is expressing that rage.  I'm hoping it builds into a movement that throws a scare into them and moves regulation of the banking industry along with progressive tax policy in the right (or left) direction.  It's easy enough to find nut cases in the crowd (as it certainly was with the Tea Party rallies), but here's hoping it develops into something constructive.

Party Loyalty

This article from National Journal has been making the rounds.  Money quote:

GOP legislators from moderate swing areas, including districts that President Obama carried in 2008, are infuriating environmentalists by joining with their conservative colleagues on votes to obliterate an array of federal regulations. That lockstep loyalty sharply departs from the way swing-district Republicans behaved in 1995, the last time the GOP unseated a Democratic House majority. It also represents a high-stakes bet that anxiety about the economy and disillusionment with Obama have defanged an issue that hurt Republicans previously in such places.
...In February, the House voted to block pending EPA regulations limiting emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global climate change; even the GOP members from districts that backed Obama in 2008 voted 59-2 for the bill. (Those were the only dissenting Republican votes.) In April, every voting House Republican (including all 61 from Obama districts) opted to overturn EPA’s scientific finding that climate change posed a public-health threat.
...In coalescing behind these measures, House Republicans from Democratic-leaning areas are behaving very differently from their mirror image: As many as 20 House Democrats, mostly from Republican-leaning areas, have usually broken with their party to support the antiregulatory proposals.

This gets me thinking about the bigger issue: Republicans from these swing districts, in spite of the presumed dangers, keep voting lock-step with their party.  Even Scott Brown and the Maine Senatorial Republicans, for all their moderation in comparison to the rest of the party, vote with Republicans on all the big stuff.  Democrats from similar districts seem to be constantly voting with the other side in an attempt to show their moderation and/or independence from the national party.

My take?  Good for Republicans.  Congressmen and Senators should be voting their consciences.  I wish moderate Democrats would stop pandering to the Right and vote what they believe.  If Ben Nelson believes in a balanced budget amendment, he ought to keep voting that way and switch parties. I hope that conservative Republicans in swing districts get wiped out in 2012 of course, but if that happens they still did the right thing- we should have a clear choice when we vote for our politicians.

Elizabeth Warren for Senate

The more I learn about Elizabeth Warren for Senate, the more I like her.  This is a woman who understands the problems on Wall Street, and believes in reining in the abuses.  And she talks about the deficit and taxes with compassion, intelligence, and a little anger.  She has a compelling personal history.

It's going to be tough.  That's because Scott Brown is a good candidate.  He's not as crazy as many people the GOP is putting out there.  As Republicans go, he's as moderate as they come.  And he's articulate and has a "regular guy" persona that voters like.

But make no mistake: he's one more vote to filubuster almost everything that the Crazies want to filibuster.  He's one more vote for Mitch McConnell as Majority Leader of the Senate.  He's against any reform of financial industry regulations.  He's going to vote to keep taxes low and the welfare state unsustainably underfunded.  We've got a chance to get rid of him now.

Reflections on Atonement and Israel

In my Shul at Kol Nidre service, my Rabbi gave a lengthy sermon about sins, the Jewish people, and Israel that got me quite engaged, and not in a good way.  His sermon went something like this:

President Obama, in a recent speech, made the point that all of us in this reflective time of the year need to think about our sins and what we can do to contribute to the Peace Process.  So I was thinking about the "sins" of the Jewish People:
The "sin" of being different.  The "sin" of refusing to assimilate and be like everybody else.  The "sin" of being successful.  The "sin" of creating the wondrous state of Israel.

The Rabbi went on to describe the many great things Israel has done, the many ways in which Palestinians and Arabs have harmed the peace process, the Palestinian Authority's statements that Jews will not be welcome in a future Palestinian state even while Muslims are a key part of the Jewish state, etc.

It was an angry and defiant sermon, reflecting the bitterness of his perception that Israel is being unfairly targeted at the UN and that the Obama administration is insufficiently supportive of her positions.

As I've said before, I yield to nobody in my love and support for Israel.  I've spent time there, and I've sent money there.  But this angry response to the President continues to rankle me.  Under President Obama, the US has continued to support Israel militarily and through intelligence operations just as much as ever.  The US is set to veto the Palestinian bid for statehood, and is using all its diplomatic pull to try to stop the issue from coming to a vote.  Yes, Obama has put more pressure on Israel to stop expanding settlements in the West Bank- but I would argue that that still qualifies as a "pro Israel" position, and of course many Israelis (on the Left) completely agree and have urged the President to keep making the case.  My Rabbi and many others in the American Jewish community put too much emphasis on supporting Likud's positions as equaling support for Israel.  Obama hasn't done a great job in the Middle East- it's certainly not a signature issue for him- but to say that he doesn't support Israel is a slander.

But all that is parenthetical to my main reaction to the sermon, which is this: Yom Kippur is a time of self-reflection, a time to look inward and to question whether our own actions have lived up to the standards we set for ourselves.  It's not a time to put "sin" in scare quotes and angrily denounce the transgressions of others.  Our clergy can use every other Shabbat and holiday of the year to denounce Palestinians and take pride in the singular and spectacular accomplishment that is Israel.  On the Day of Atonement, we shouldn't be thinking about how we've been wronged. 

So in that spirit, I forgive my Rabbi this lapse, if for no other reason then because I know it comes from the part of him that loves Israel like I do.  And I beg forgiveness if I've misunderstood and slandered him by publishing this post.  As for Israel, I vow to support its existence and continued prosperity, even if that means criticizing its policies.

Democrats in the Middle... and Getting No Credit

Great point here from the Plum Line at the Washington Post.

Calling for a third party is a quick and easy way to get yourself booked for a round of cable TV appearances. But many of those calling for a third party are refusing to reckon with an inconvenient fact: One of the two parties already occupies the approximate ideological space that these commentators themselves are describing as the dream middle ground that allegedly can only be staked out by a third party.
That party is known as the “Democratic Party,” and it alreadly holds many of the positions these commentators want a third party to espouse.

I couldn't say it better myself.  Click through to the post- lots of good examples abound.

As a liberal myself, I don't particularly like that the Democrats have become the party of the center.  I want to see a dynamic in which Democrats start at the position that tax hikes should be the primary way to handle the deficit, for example.  Then we can compromise and end up at... the current Democratic position.  Starting there just guarantees that we'll end up closer the far-right position.

Right now we have the GOP for the far Right, the Democrats for the Center, and..... nobody in the polity representing the Left.

A Provocative Comparison of Republicans and Palestinians

An analagy occurred to me today: Democrats are to the Republican party as Israel is to the Palestinians.

You probably want an explanation for that.

Here goes: The Palestinians (particularly Hamas) are completely intransigent when it comes to peace with Israel.  When Israel has offered land for peace swaps, they have uniformly rejected the deals.  When Ehud Olmert offered them practically everything they could expect (West Bank and Gaza sovereignty, sharing of Jerusalem in return for end to hostilities) they responded with refusal and a renewal of terrorism.  The Israeli peace movement, quite strong in the 1980s and 1990s, is a pale shell of its former self, as Israelis have decided that they have "no partner for peace", will just have to hunker down and wait for Palestinians to change.

Analgously, the Republican party has been completely intransigent since the 2008 elections.  Any overture made by Democrats to join them in the Center and compromise has been met by implacable opposition.  President Obama has naively offered very reasonable policies once favored by the Right (health care with an individual mandate, cap and trade environmental laws, deficit reduction based mostly on spending cuts) and has been met with refusal and an escalation of tactics designed to grind all of Washington to a halt.  Hopefully, at long last, Obama and other Democrats have finally seen that they have "no partner for governing".  They have to hunker down, fight to win elections, and wait for the GOP to return to planet Earth.

We just have to convince the David Brookses and Ben Nelsons and Joe Liebermans of the world that this is the case.  We're not there yet, and I despair of ever getting there.

My Mood Starts to Shift in Baby Steps

I was really discouraged a month or so ago, by Obama's repeated caving to an intransigent GOP.  His recent pivot to "pass this bill!" populism has me a little more hopeful, though. While I have pretty much accepted that the guy just isn't that liberal- that was wishful thinking- I'm hoping that he might actually fight for something- anything.

But his attempts to come to the center and be the adult in the room have been remarkably ineffective. I think he's calculated at long last that compromise is completely impossible with these guys and he has to draw contrasts. I'd have liked to see it happen a long time ago, but BHO believed his own rhetoric about bringing people together and changing the culture. Better late than never.

The economy is going to be terrible next November, which is very bad for incumbent presidents. The only chance he has is to draw the contrasts and try to blame it on the Republicans.

What continues to bum me out, though, is that Obama is obsessed with staking out this "middle ground"- deficit reduction, tax cuts as stimulus more than government spending, etc- which liberal economists say is just way too weak to make much difference in the economy. So I'm left arguing not that Obama's plans are great, but that they're the bare minimum. "But the Republicans would be even worse!" Not much of a slogan.

And then on top of that, he doesn't get any credit for being in the center. David Brooks in the NYT this week hammered Obama for giving up on centrism!

Yes, I’m a sap. I believed Obama when he said he wanted to move beyond the stale ideological debates that have paralyzed this country. I always believe that Obama is on the verge of breaking out of the conventional categories and embracing one of the many bipartisan reform packages that are floating around. But remember, I’m a sap. The White House has clearly decided that in a town of intransigent Republicans and mean ideologues, it has to be mean and intransigent too. The president was stung by the liberal charge that he was outmaneuvered during the debt-ceiling fight. So the White House has moved away from the Reasonable Man approach or the centrist Clinton approach.
It has gone back, as an appreciative Ezra Klein of The Washington Post conceded, to politics as usual. The president is sounding like the Al Gore for President campaign, but without the earth tones. Tax increases for the rich! Protect entitlements! People versus the powerful! I was hoping the president would give a cynical nation something unconventional, but, as you know, I’m a sap.

He's so committed to his narrative ("the two sides need to come together in the middle and we'll be united and solve all our problems") that he's blind to the reality, which is that Republicans won't come to the center no matter what. [I love this Jonathan Cohn takedown of the Brooks piece]  There's no hope for David Brooks I guess.  He really is a sap.