February 25, 2015--Two of a Kind

Appearing on CBS's Sunday show, Face the Nation, Senator John McCain said that he is "ashamed of my country" for allowing Vladimir Putin to annex Crimea and push militarily to overthrow the government of Ukraine.

Host Bob Shieffer was stunned. "I'll say this, senator, I've known you for a long, long time, interviewed you many, many times, and I've never heard you say I'm ashamed of my country."

McCain added, "I'm ashamed of my president and I'm ashamed of myself that I haven't done more to help these people."

Adding himself to the list of who to be ashamed of softened his otherwise outrageous characterization of his president. It is not appropriate for a senior senator to express these divisive and mean-spirited feelings. Yes, disagree, disagree strenuously, disagree fundamentally, disagree profoundly, whatever; but to be ashamed crosses the line and thus stunned veteran journalist Shieffer.

McCain was trumped in mean-spiritedness last week by Rudy Giuliani, formerly known as America's Mayor. Over the weekend at a Scott Walker fundraiser at New York's 21 Club, he said, "I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn't love you. And he doesn't love me. He wasn't brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up, through love of this country."

And he didn't walk it back, reiterating later that he was merely expressing his feelings.

Giuliani, and to a lesser extent, John McCain are suffering from Dick Morris Syndrome. Sensing that they are both aging and losing influence and power. For Rudy, who ran disastrous campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, to see rising empty-suit political stars such as Scott Walker grabbing attention and headlines, it is hard because of his kind of colossal ego. Ditto for McCain who still can't accept the fact that he lost the national election in 2008 and that Barack Obama is president.

In Dick Morris' case, he began his professional political career working for Upper-Westside liberal Manhattan Democrats and then moved into the center of the Bill Clinton reelection campaign until he was forced out when he got into a scandal involving a prostitute. Next stop for him was Fox News and after making a fool of himself there (predicting on air a landslide victory for Mitt Romney), he descended further and is left now pandering to that 20-30 percent of the GOP base that takes Glenn Beck, Russ Limbaugh, and black helicopters seriously. There's money to be made there by writing books about how Obama is seeking to turn America into a totalitarian state with him self-imposed as president-for-life.

These same dead-enders are now the people with whom Giuliani is left to cavort. What a sad fate.

January 8, 2014--Lynching

Circulating virally right now among progressives is a blog posting by Frank Schaeffer, a former member of the Religious Right, in which he comes to the defense of Barack Obama, claiming, with considerable truth, that much of the disproportionate and even savage criticism of Obama is because of racism.

Schaeffer emerged from his Evangelical life a number of years ago and has been telling his story in a three-volume memoir called by some the God Trilogy. In the first of the three, Crazy for God, he reveals that he left his Fundamentalist coreligionists when he "realized just how anti-American they are."

In the blog, "GOP Driven Crazy by Hatred for Obama," which is being widely circulated by some liberal friends of mine, Schaeffer reveals that--

[He] changed because, if this country will lynch a brilliant, civil, kind, humble, compassionate, moderate, articulate, black intellectual we're lucky enough to have in the White House, we'll lynch anyone. What chance does an anonymous black man pulled over in a traffic stop have of fair treatment when the former editor of the Harvard Law Review is being lynched? [Emphasis added.]

Shaeffer is the new darling of many progressives because it is so rare for someone, anyone to switch ideologies from right to left. Pretty much all political conversions are in the other direction, from liberal to conservative. It is much more common to find Dick Morrises who begin life as fervent supporters of Democrats and then, for various reasons, become disillusioned with liberal orthodoxy and migrate to the other side of the political spectrum. In cases such as Dick Morris' they become ultra-conservative, believing in paranoid conspiracies or come to realize there's more of a quick-buck available on the extreme right than left.

But the criticism and attacks Obama is experiencing is not a lynching.

A lynching is a lynching as the Holocaust is the Holocaust.

If liberals who pride themselves on knowing their history engage in this kind of hyper-inflated rhetoric how can one criticize right-wing conservatives when they call Obama an Islamic socialist or communist?

April 17, 2013--Gold Bugs at the Green Owl

The gold bugs at the Owl were not happy.

Back in 2011 they were in full ascendancy tinged with a touch of arrogance. Those of us with conventional asset portfolios of stocks, bonds, cash, and real estate were subject to a barrage of their self-congratulations and experienced continuing trepidation as we had not yet fully recovered from the plunges of 2007 and 2008. And, worse, hadn’t had the smarts, or guts, to diversify into gold.

Those who had listened to Peter Schiff on the reasonable economic right or were subject to the rants of lunatics Glenn Beck and Dick Morris to the right of that, seeing the sky falling and runaway inflation inevitable—Weimar Republic style—those, in panic and paranoia, were buying as many Krugerrands as they could afford and were thinking about adding to their stock of dried beans, bottled water, and AK-15s.

Off the per-ounce high of $1,888 in August 2011, they had seen the value of their gold hoard drop 17 percent during the past few months, then quivered as it begin to fall off the cliff last Friday--when the price fell 4.0 percent--and then were at risk of becoming unhinged when it plummeted 9.35 percent on Monday, the steepest one-day decline since 1983. The next day, on Tuesday morning, you could pick up a one-ounce Australian Kangaroo Nugget for a mere $1,366 bucks. 

In the meantime, even after falling 266 points on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was still at nearly 14,600, more than fully recovered from its low of 7,552 back in November 2008. 

"I think I'll stick to decaf, Traci" Ted said, staring morosely at his empty cup, "I've had about as much excitement as I can handle." For years he has been boasting about his attaché cases bulging with gold coins. "I'm ready for anything," he reminded us back in the days when we were doing the staring into coffee mugs.

When I would challenge him about what he would actually do when Armageddon came--“You’ll fill up your Hummer with gas with one of those coins?"--he would sit there, brimming with smug confidence, nodding and smiling back at me. 

"If that happened," I persisted, "if it really hit the fan, you think they'd have gas?" He'd kept on grinning. "Much less electricity to work the pumps?" 

"Here's what you don't understand," he said, leaning close to me and putting one of his meaty hands gently on my slumping shoulder, "Those of us who are ready, prepared, if you get my full meaning, have our ways. We know who we are and we know where to go to get more of what we need." He would wink at that. "I mean everything we need." To illustrate, he made a gun out of his hand and, in case I missed his meaning, demonstrated by repeatedly pumping his trigger finger.  

And with that he would puff himself up, hoist himself up off his stool, and swagger, cowboy style, out toward Atlantic Avenue, leaving me with not much of a retort and, in truth, with continuing worries about where the country was headed and if we did in fact have enough money. Or enough bullion to buy a loaf of bread. 

But now, with his world slipping out of control, Ted muttered, “I bet you want to talk about that Paul Klingman BS.”

“You mean Paul Krugman’s column in yesterday New York Times?” He grumbled affirmatively. “I’m surprised to learn you read him. I thought you were exclusively devoted to the McKinley Goldbug Newsletter?” 

“Gotta keep up with the enemy,” he growled. 

“As a matter of fact I did see it. The one that also dealt with the Winklevoss twins, who made a pile from suing Facebook. How they are sinking their fortune into a scheme as radical as hoarding gold—bitcoins, I think it’s called, digital currency for on-line transactions. Cyber money that would take the place of tainted conventional money. Tainted because, to the likes of the Winklevii, the Fed is printing so much of it that it will at some point lose all its value.” 

“I’m not into that bitcoin business,” Ted said, “That sounds crazy even to me.” Thankfully, at times Ted does display a sense of humor.

“But of course,” I said, “you’re talking about what Krugman wrote about gold and gold bugs.” He shrugged. “I myself thought he got it right. That gold as currency doesn’t make any more sense than paper money. In fact, less. There isn’t that much of it and it’s hard to lug around. It’s all abstract. Gold itself is good for filling teeth and making wedding rings. Not much more. It has value because it’s relatively rare and hard to mine and refine. By that measure we could go on the diamond standard or hoard plutonium coins.”

“Now you’re sounding like the one who’s crazy.” I caught the faint beginning of a smile.

“I liked that quote from Paul Samuelson. How money—all kinds of money, that I suppose would include wampum and cowry shells—is a ‘social convenience.’ If people will accept it in exchange for goods and services by definition it has value. Including paper money like dollars, which are backed as legal tender through the full faith and credit of the government.” 

At that he eyed me skeptically. Preemptively, I continued, “I know what you’re about to say—you have a problem with the government keeping its promises even when it comes to backing its currency.” 

“Especially when it comes to that—to backing up the formerly-almighty dollar,” he was back to growling. 

“Look, for sure I’m not confident about what will happen in the future. Things could get better or they could get much worse. One thing I do know for certain is that all your gold and your dried beans will get you only so far. And then you’ll be just like the rest of us. Scrambling for scraps.”

At that apocalyptic vision he smiled beatifically. “But all your crying wolf and claiming the sky is falling hasn’t happened. In fact, our economy, with its problems, is stronger than it was five years ago and there is minimal inflation. And as a consequence, your gold is beginning not to look so good.” 

“Wait till tomorrow,” Ted said. “You’ll see. The sky is falling. But to see it you need to get your nose out of your New York Times once in a while.” It was my turn to smile. 

“Traci,” he called out, “let me have some of that high test. That is if the Owl’s still accepting American money.”