Why NOT Perpetually Fund Education?

by on June 29, 2010
Posted In: politics

The Oregonian editors lament the latest round of cuts in education throughout the state of Oregon and puzzle over the absence of outrage among citizens who see their school systems eliminate staff, shorten the school year, and close schools.

But the editors hasten to add, lest anyone think they are crazy or something, “We’re not arguing that the federal government always and forever must prop up schools.”

Why not? Isn’t education a national priority? Didn’t we used to have politicians who bragged of being “the education president” or some hollow-sounding shit?

Let me invoke an old “lefty argument” — because that’s what some folks will call it, regardless of its merit — and point out the current state of our national defense spending. Total expenditures: Department of Defense + Iraq + Afghanistan + other (energy, more weapons, etc.) = between $880 billion and 1.3 trillion.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that Congress and the White House are beginning to think about maybe at some point to start cutting the defense budget as part of reducing the national budget deficit. I will believe it when I see it. However, the motivation reflects warped priorities. The article concludes that “a difficult switch from guns to butter – or guns to deficit reduction – is about to get under way.”

Emphasis mine. No butter, all deficit reduction. Anyone reading Krugman lately? The global austerity measures proposed at the G20 Summit this week are knee-jerk reactions to a deceitful narrative that places the blame for financial crisis on overspending, rather than on the investment and financial industry that sold everyone sophisticated instruments made of shit. As Krugman points out, we cut spending at the moment we need it most. History may show that spending — to help the unemployed, to create jobs, for research and development, to retrain workers — promotes economic recovery, but the economic conservatives who currently dominate the conversation are, like so many conservatives, pig ignorant about history. No surprise that the G20 Summit ended on a confused note.

We will go into stupid debt to finance wars we should not wage, but for education? Arts programs? School sports? Morning and after school day care? Modern facilities with decent heating during the winter? School supplies? Lab equipment? Field trips? Lunches that serve real food?

These deserve “always and forever” funding. Unless we suddenly lose the urge to procreate, we humans will continue to have new generations of students to edumacate. It’s that simple. Honest.

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We Know Bupkis, But Let’s Keep Babbling!

by on June 25, 2010
Posted In: politics

So far the “reasons to doubt” allegations of sexual assault by vice president Al Gore seem less like reasons to doubt than cases of cautious reporting and police investigation — both worthy things if we presume the accused is innocent and the onus of evidence is on the state. Lack of evidence is simply that; until more can be found to corroborate the testimony, the case and the story are dead.

But that’s not how politics works. It’s certainly not in the business interests of the National Enquirer to withhold a scandalous story. Anyone who hates Gore is predisposed to attack him with the allegations. Anyone who supports Gore is predisposed to attack the accuser. Gore trashing is predictable, so I haven’t even bothered to look far for it. But I have been looking to see what the feminist community has had to say, and so far Jessica Valenti at Feministing is the only one to comment on the story. Read the whole thing, even if I blockquote her worthy conclusion here:

So I hope that no matter what comes of this, those of us who have supported Gore and his work in the past can write and talk about this accusation without falling into hackneyed victim-blaming narratives. Because liberal dudes assault women too. And if we treat this story any differently than another sexual assault accusation, we’re doing this woman – and all women – a great disservice.

True that. It also disserves truth. The public has a right to know if its powerful elites are up to no good, but it does us no good if we can’t get to the facts due to a cloud of rumors and biases. It’s tempting to speculate (I find it odd that the Enquirer puts out this story in connection with the recent divorce between the Gores) but it’s not responsible nor worth doing.

I could say much of the same about all of the rumors following another recent case in Portland that went national — the disappearance of Kyron Harmon. Again, much to speculate. But do it in private. Why pollute the information stream with ignorant bullshit? Don’t we have enough? Yeah, I know, nature and nattering nabobs abhor a vacuum.

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The Point is What?

by on June 23, 2010
Posted In: politics

Oh, Daily Beast, you are a wonder. When I tire of the right wing war blather, there you are, serving up the liberal equivalent.

But first, I agree with Atrios — Peter Beinart has a point:

Last summer, he tried to split the difference—surging in Afghanistan while simultaneously pledging to retreat on the theory that within eighteen months the U.S. could so weaken the Taliban that they would sue for peace. Six months in, that strategy looks increasingly absurd. As its most honest proponents concede, counterinsurgency is a long, messy business, especially when the president whose country you’re trying to save is indifferent, if not hostile, to the effort. In all likelihood, when the deadline for troop withdrawal arrives a year from now, Obama will be forced to choose between something that looks like an unlimited commitment and something that looks like defeat. He’ll be forced to make the choice that he avoided last year.

Obama should make it now. He should use McChrystal’s transgression to install a general who will publicly and unambiguously declare that America’s days in Afghanistan are numbered.

Yep, I’m with you, Pete. A have-cake-and-eat-it-too strategy has obvious internal inconsistencies and plenty of magical thinking — all in the face of public opposition to the war. Alas, here is where we part:

He should use this moment not just to show that he won’t tolerate insubordination, but to take control of his foreign policy, as Truman did in 1951. Calling McChrystal on the carpet isn’t the point; the point is ending a war that could wreck Obama’s presidency. That would be the best revenge.

Saving Obama’s presidency is the point of ending a failed war? I thought it was the lives of innocent people and exploited cannon fodder. Silly me. As with Hoge’s preoccupation with the executive schlong, Beinart’s priorities are in line with the think-tankers, the villagers, the war-mongers and the rest of the Conventional Wisdom crowd that has brought us ten years of unnecessary violence and destruction. The default mode of thinking is concerned with the President’s hold on power, regardless of how the exercise of such power affects the world. Only courtiers care for the fortunes of the king. We peasants can fob off.

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