Who Knows the Truth About Spying?

My observation is that there is a tremendous amount of disagreement about the truth with regard to who has coordinating with the Russians, who has been coordinating with the British spy agencies, and what the various U.S. spy agencies know.  Nobody really knows the truth, perhaps not even the president.  I suppose the master spy agencies know the most, because they have access to enormous amounts of information including phone and email records.

There are a few facts we do know:

• A former British spy, Christopher Steele, was contracted by the Democrats to investigate possible misdeeds by the Trump campaign, including collusion (conspiracy) with Russia to release Democratic campaign emails.
• The Mueller investigation had broad authority to investigate such claims, but failed to find any evidence of such conspiracy.
• There is considerable circumstantial evidence that the retired British spy Christopher Steele and his associate Pablo Miller fed incorrect information regarding Russia-Trump conspiracy to the FBI and to US and UK reporters -- specifically Mother Jones magazine, Luke Harding of the Guardian, and Mark Urban of the BBC.
• Harding and others continued to produce false reports, obtained from MI6 sources, during the course of the Mueller campaign.  One example was the report that Paul Manafort met several times with Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy.  
• MI6, the UK spy agency associated with Steele and Miller, was also the source of incorrect reporting regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
• Sergei Skripal was a former double agent working for the British in Moscow and imprisoned by the Russians.  He was freed and sent to Britain as part of a spy swap many years ago.  In March 2018 he was attacked in Salisbury England and hasn't been seen since, although he is was treated by UK doctors presumably under the authority of the UK intelligence agencies investigating the case.  The UK was quick to blame Russia for assassination attempt, although the case has many inconsistencies and intelligence blackouts.  It became a western cause for expulsion of Russian diplomats and international condemnation.
• Skripal was a close associate of Pablo Miller, and apparently the source of much of the Steele dossier as well as of BBC and Guardian reporting, which the Mueller investigation was unable to verify.  British intelligence authorities moved immediately after the assassination attempt to squelch any public reporting of these relationships.
• The British military-intelligence complex has been funding a publicity effort called the Integrity Initiative which was quick to jump on the Skripal assassination attempt with a narrative described far previous to the event itself.

Many will dispute these facts, include the U.S. mainstream media.  The common refrain is that the Mueller report did not contradict the Steele dossier.  But the contentions in the Steele dossier are very specific and extreme; i.e.

1) Vladimir Putin had a five year (later stated as eight year) plan to run Donald Trump as a “Manchurian candidate” for President and Trump was an active and knowing partner in Putin’s scheme.2) Hillary Clinton is so stupid and unaware that she held compromising conversations over telephone lines whilst in Russia itself.3) Trump’s lawyer/adviser Mr Cohen was so stupid he held meetings in Prague with the hacker/groups themselves in person to arrange payment, along with senior officials of the Russian security services. The NSA, CIA and FBI are so incompetent they did not monitor this meeting, and somehow the NSA failed to pick up on the electronic and telephone communications involved in organising it. Therefore Mr Cohen was never questioned over this alleged and improbable serious criminal activity.4) A private company had minute by minute intelligence on the Manchurian Candidate scheme and all the indictable illegal activity that was going on, which the CIA/NSA/GCHQ/MI6 did not have, despite their specific tasking and enormous technical, staff and financial resources amounting between them to over 150,000 staff and the availability of hundreds of billions of dollars to do nothing but this.5) A private western company is able to run a state level intelligence operation in Russia for years, continually interviewing senior security sources and people personally close to Putin, without being caught by the Russian security services – despite the fact the latter are brilliant enough to install a Manchurian candidate as President of the USA. This private western company can for example secretly interview staff in top Moscow hotels – which they themselves say are Russian security service controlled – without the staff being too scared to speak to them or ending up dead. They can continually pump Putin’s friends for information and get it.6) Donald Trump’s real interest is his vast financial commitment in China, and he has little investment in Russia, according to the reports. Yet he spent the entire election campaign advocating closer ties with Russia and demonising and antagonising China.

I agree that the Steele Russia dossier seems extremely unlikely.  Moreover, years of examination, including the Mueller probe have failed to confirm any of this.  Media companies wouldn't release the dossier in 2016 because it couldn't be validated.  Yet it was released to the FBI and Mother Jones before the 2016 election, and to the general public in early 2017 and used as the basis for much of what is dividing our country today.

Now my sources on this could be all wrong and the mainstream media (establishment Democrats) right on all this.  The fact is that we cannot know the truth because we are relying on spy agencies who are in the business of secrecy and, often, deception.  So perhaps we should not be so quick to jump on each other.  No one has proof.  We are all at the mercy of the spy agencies, and who amongst us can claim to know what information that they are providing is true, and what is not.

Yet the discourse today is dominated by various groups claiming to be sure that they are right and the others are wrong.  

• The mainstream media and Dems claim there is good reason to believe that Trump conspired with Russia.
• The Republicans claimed that the Dems paid for dirt on Trump, and the dirt produced in the Steele dossier is unverifiable, yet has served as the basis for several years of investigation by the FBI and the media, including wiretapping, FBI interviews, and other forms of harsh investigation.
• The populists believe that the intelligence agencies are not to be trusted.

Further issues include the release of DNC and Podesta emails by Wikileaks, and intelligence agency assertions that this information was provided by Russians hackers, and the finding by the Mueller report that Russian agents did in fact approach members of the Trump campaign to discuss the possibility of sharing this information.

Thus, all U.S. groups have a legitimate reason to be upset:

• The establishment Democrats are upset because their private email conversations were released during the 2016 presidential campaign.
• The anti-establishment Democrats are upset because said email conversations confirmed accusation of bias in the Democratic primary, as evidenced by the resignation of the DNC chair and accompanying apologies.
• Republicans are upset because extreme and unverified opposition research has dominated the national conversation ever since Trump was elected president, and that the Trump administration has been under investigation by the FBI on the basis of unjustified suspicion of a Russian conspiracy.

Almost by definition, the mainstream media has done the most to whip up the mutual distrust based upon unverified spy reports.  Easily verifiable Trump lies and malfeasance has been conflated with Russia conspiracy relying upon intelligence agencies.  Rachel Maddow on MSNBC took this to an extreme, becoming very popular among the establishment Democrats.

In my opinion, the best course of action for all concerned is to dismiss the spy agencies and rely on what is more open and verifiable.  If we become pawns in the spy vs spy battle, we turn on each other, promulgate hate and dysfunction without end.

Misallocation of Investment

Our political-economic system is failing to allocate investment efficiently.  Trillions of dollars are being spent in stock buybacks and self-driving cars, while urgent problems such as global warming, plastic pollution, and other forms of environmental destruction go unaddressed.  Because of this, I favor socialism.

Sustainable Planet and Bullshit Jobs

As David Graeber wrote in his book Bullshit Jobs, finding meaningful work is a problem. Graeber contends that over half of societal work is pointless, and that this becomes psychologically destructive when paired with a work ethic that associates work with self-worth.

This fits my experience. As our glorious economy pours billions in pursuit of autonomous vehicles, the future of the planet is increasingly imperiled. From global warming to microplastics to nuclear proliferation, the prospects for succeeding generations are increasing bleak.

So put 2 and 2 together. Everything that is produced must be recycled. Take half the workforce that is doing bullshit jobs and put them to work recycling. This is best done by sovereign governments where money is no object (MMT).

Hire people to do what needs to be done to make a livable planet. Stop counting on "the market" to solve our problems. The market, and capitalist financial markets in particular, are not good at dealing with externalities (e.g. pollution). The market as currently constructed is good at employing people in bullshit jobs and at building financial bubbles.

Russiagate Redux - Falling Into the Trap

In February 2018, I made the case that Russia-gate is overblown. It's now a year later, and the Mueller investigation has concluded that there was no Trump collusion with Russia. This has not been well received by many elitist Democrats such as Adam Schiff, chairman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Schiff defended his assessment that there exists “significant evidence of collusion” between President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Kremlin".

Schiff's track record on this sort of thing is not good:

Schiff voted in favor of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[11] In February 2015, discussing how or whether to tailor Bush-era plans from 2001 and 2002 to fight ISIS, Schiff was asked if he regretted voting to invade. He said, "Absolutely. Unfortunately, our intelligence was dead wrong on that, on Saddam at that time. [The vote] set in motion a cascading series of events which have [had] disastrous consequences."

I prefer the track record of Matt Taibbi -- Russiagate is this generation's WMD.

Despite David Remnick’s post-invasion protestations that “nobody got [WMD] completely right,” the Iraq war was launched against the objections of the 6 million or more people who did get it right, and protested on the streets.

Trump is an obvious liar and general idiot, in my humble opinion.  Republicans in general have been disreputable my entire life -- from the Vietnam War to Iran-Contra and supply side economics to Whitewater and the Iraq War in 2003 with the bogus weapons of mass destruction and Al-Qaeda ties.  Newt Gingrich is a fraud and the 2008 economic crash was a refutation of Reaganomics.

So Democrats are responding to Republican idiocy, which has been remarkably successful, with idiocy of their own.  Trump is on the right side of Russiagate, by all objective measures including the Mueller report which made use of the full powers of the 17 US intelligence agencies.

The Democratic hypocrisy is obvious.  The U.S. has been involved in many "color revolutions", seeking to affect political affairs in other countries.  But when the Russians do something similar, at a much smaller and less invasive scale, this is beyond the pale?  Imagine the Russians supporting a coup by the Confederate states and their white nationalist (Nazi) leaders, and you have a comparable situation to that in Ukraine.

Matt Taibbi describes our current predicament in It's official: Russiagate is this generation's WMD.  He actually wrote this before it was official, because he has known for sometime where this has been headed.  In contrast, others have been warning us not to jump to conclusions.  That's generally a good idea but, in this case, Taibbi had it right way ahead of others.   He's written a book on the subject - Hate Inc.

The premise of Taibbi's book is that modern media corporations have gotten people addicted to hating each other.  Journalists have been selling anger. The modern news consumer tunes into news that confirms his or her prejudices about whatever the villain of the day happened to be: foreigners, minorities, terrorists, the Clintons, Republicans, even corporations.  I've created a diagram which shows the major groups that are angry with one another:  Political / Economic Quadrants.

I'm mad at the neoliberal and conservative groups for reviving the Cold War and making Trump (libertarian group) stronger by putting him on the truthful side of the Russiagate narrative. They fell into the blind hatred trap.  This is the same trap we fell into after 9/11 when our blind rage with regard to Islamic terrorists led us into an ill advised war in Iraq.  Once again we have been misled by neoconservatives exploiting a bad situation (9/11, Trump presidency) for their warlike purposes.

Democratic Demographics

Nate Silver’s Categories

Nate Silver identifies The 5 Corners Of The 2020 Democratic Primary as follows:

1. Party Loyalists
2. The Left
3. Millennials and Friends
4. Black voters
5. Hispanic voters (sometimes in combination with Asian voters)

His purpose in doing this is to predict who will win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination (or, more specifically, to evaluate the chances of the various candidates).

The first problem with Silver’s categories is that it ignores older white voters who are neither party loyalists or “the left”. Another problem is that the ethnic/age categories overlap and are internally divided. For example, Silver acknowledges that younger blacks and Hispanics vote differently than older blacks and Hispanics. Finally, Silver ignores other important traits such as ideology and socioeconomic status.


In sum, I find Silver’s overlapping and incomplete, though possibly useful to political pros.

More Fundamental Groupings

A better categorization, for an amateur such as myself, is one which more clearly maps to the political landscape based upon ideology, as opposed to ethnicity or age. I have identified two Democratic constituencies (see Political/Economic Quadrants).

1. Neoliberal
2. Democratic Socialist

These categories are based upon the more fundamental attribute of whether is a person favors the status quo (neoliberal) or favors dramatic change. The alignment of candidates with categories is much more obvious here. Sanders, Warren, and Gabbart are more democratic socialist, while Biden, Harris, Booker, Gillibrand, Klobuchar, and Hickenlooper are more neoliberal. I’m not familiar with other candidates and I could be wrong about some of these as I don’t know many of the candidates very well.

Digging Deeper

Whether you start at the top with the obvious ideological groupings (neoliberal, democratic socialist), or with Silver’s mix of ethnicity, age, and ideology, you may want to look deeper for greater accuracy.  Here is a more comprehensive demographic breakdown:

1. Ideology
1. Neoliberal
2. Democratic socialist
2. Economic status
1. Poor
2. Working class
3. Upper middle class
4. Rich
3. Race / Citizenship history
1. Native
1. White
2. Black
2. Relatively recent immigrant
1. Hispanic
2. Asian
3. Other
4. Age
1. Millennial
2. Generation X
3. Boomer
5. Location
1. Density
1. Urban
2. Suburban
3. Rural
2. Region
1. Northeast
2. South
3. Midwest
4. West
6. Gender
1. Male
2. Female
7. Education
1. High school or less
2. College degree
3. Post graduate degree
8. Religion
1. Christian
1. Catholic
2. Protestant
2. Jewish
3. Islamic
4. Other (humanist, atheist, Buddhist, ...)

Implications

The best candidates will obviously have broad spectrum appeal.  This is especially true with regard to race / ethnicity, as a candidate identified too closely with any one group will have correspondingly less appeal to other groups.  Silver tries to show broad spectrum appeal by measuring each of his candidates across his 5 factors.  Kamala Harris seems to come out among the best in this view (very strong with blacks and only somewhat weak with the left), while Bernie Sanders fares poorly (very weak with party loyalists and weak with Hispanic/Asian and blacks). 

The outlook changes dramatically when you consider economic status, which is a huge factor in every racial, ethnic, and age group.  A candidate who does well in the middle class groups will likely do well across these other categories, in my opinion.  The middle class has the numbers, and there is little offset in supporting the middle class. Thus, while a candidate closely identified with blacks may put off other ethnic groups, a candidate closely identified with the middle class will not lose many votes from the rich or poor.  Campaign contributions, however, are another matter.

Critical to the neoliberal - democratic socialist divide is the issue of money.  Money makes the world go around, and nowhere more so than in the U.S.  Politics is certainly not exempt.  Social democrats traditionally abhor this fact, but are powerless to do anything about it.  Neoliberals recognize money as a necessary evil.  This is the very real divide within the Democratic party, and one that the winning candidate will have to bridge, in my opinion.

2020 is an usual year because of the events of 2016.  The neoliberal / upper classes took a huge hit with the defeat of Hillary Clinton by the rabid populist Donald Trump.  In the wake of that defeat, all Democratic candidates have endorsed the positions of democratic socialist Bernie Sanders.  Thus, Sanders has an unusual advantage for a populist in terms of credibility, whereas the neoliberal candidates are at a corresponding disadvantage.  Elizabeth Warren also has considerable credibility without the baggage of being despised by party loyalists.    It’s also possible that other candidates will somehow be able to boost their populist credibility and compete with Sanders and Warren in the democratic socialist quadrant, but no candidate seems an obvious bet to do that at the present time.

Related to money are special interest groups.  Such groups are critical to successful campaigning and governance.  Such groups need to be reckoned with and the neoliberal status quo has more long-standing relationships at their disposal, as compared to the populists.  Also, the neoliberal upper classes have more power than the lower classes to set the rules of the game and control the narrative.

Thus, in the 2020 Democratic race, the populists have an usual opportunity to break through, but are facing the usual money and special interest group advantages held by the neoliberal status quo segment.   The winning candidate will have to explicitly recognize the unfairness and inequality in our country and thus attract the votes of the poor and working class, while assuaging the fears of the special interests, neoliberals and upper classes that their world will be unduly upset.

U.S. Propaganda Proven False

Very similar to propaganda which got us into Vietnam and Iraq wars.  

Must See NY Times Video (6 minutes)  Contradicts U.S. Claim That Maduro Burned Aid Convoy

“Each of the trucks burned by Maduro carried 20 tons of food and medicine,” Senator Marco Rubio wrote on Twitter, repeating a claim posted by a Colombian news network that was on the scene. “This is a crime and if international law means anything he must pay a high price for this.”

Contacted by The Times about the footage Saturday, a spokesman for Mr. Rubio did not address who burned the trucks, saying in a statement that “Maduro bears full responsibility for the destruction of humanitarian aid.”

The video contains proof that anti-Maduro thugs throwing Molotov cocktails set the trucks on fire.

More at https://theintercept.com/20... --

U.S. officials who have been agitating for a regime change war in Venezuela – Marco Rubio, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, the head of USAid Mark Green – used Twitter to spread classic Fake News: they vehemently stated that the trucks were set on fire, on purpose, by President Nicolas Maduro’s forces... independent journalists – the kind who question rather than mindlessly repeat government claims and are therefore mocked and marginalized and kept off mainstream television – used exactly this same evidence on the day of the incident to debunk the lies being told by Rubio, Pompeo, Bolton and CNN.

Singularities and the Big Bang, Luminiferous Aether and Quantum Field Theory

In recent years I've been staying away from quantum physics because it doesn't make sense to me.  Is this a problem with me, or with quantum physics?

One post I read (Piekniewski) pointed out:

And above everything there is the singularity itself, a clear indication that something is wrong with this solution... My stance is that nature does not like singularities. Any time our equations suggest a singularity (particularly followed by paradoxes), we likely have the wrong equations.

And this makes sense.  The conclusion that black holes are singularities, and that the big bang resulted from a singularity are mathematically dubious.

In mathematics, a singularity is in general a point at which a given mathematical object is not defined, or a point of an exceptional set where it fails to be well-behaved in some particular way, such as differentiability. (Wikipedia)

So we have conventional wisdom positing a singularity, i.e. a point of undefined mathematics.  Yet, the whole basis for positing the singularity is mathematical -- there is no intuitive explanation of  the quantum physics of black holes and the big bang.

Much of quantum physics has been experimentally confirmed, but the parts regarding singularities in black holes and at the big bang can never be tested, much less confirmed.  My conclusion is that the problem is not me (or my unwillingness to tread the mathematically ardous road to singularities).  Rather, the conventional wisdom regarding black holes and the big bang is wrong.  I guess that there are mathematically sound explanations of these phenomena that do not require positing the magic of singularities.

With regard to quantum physics in general, there seems to be solid reason to believe in accept quantum field theory.  However, conceptually and intuitively, such fields  are similar to luminiferous aether, supposedly discredited in 1887.  I suppose there are some properties that were postulated for luminiferous aether that are different in quantum field theory, but this is not clear.  Force fields are everywhere and there are thresholds for realization as particles of energy or matter.  This is something that makes sense intuitively.  The conventional wisdom that we should accept mathematical singularities without intuitive support is less likely to be true or meaningful.

MMT Elevator Speech

Modern Monetary Theory, or MMT for short, is a school of economics. There are 2 aspects of MMT:

1. MMT is an improved (much clearer and more straightforward) description of how existing monetary and banking systems work.
2. MMT proposes a government job guarantee (employer of last resort) as a tool to reduce unemployment and act as an automatic fiscal stabilizer with regard to inflation.   (Note that we already have valuable automatic fiscal stabilizers in the form of income taxes and welfare benefits.)

#2 is substantially untested. #1 is unassailable as it is just a description of how things work. MMT supplements the classical economic story of the invisible hand of the market with the following insights:

1. Money is part of a larger accounting system of who owes what to whom in society.
2. The government is essential to this system in that it establishes the unit of account (e.g. U.S. dollar) and legal framework for financial activity.
3. The economy is more than the sum of its parts. For example, while it might make sense for individuals to save more, if everyone saves more the result will be widespread unemployment due to lower spending.

The implication of these considerations is that the federal government is not constrained in the same manner as the other economic sectors:

1. Since the government establishes the legal framework for accounting, the government can and should change the financial rules as appropriate for the benefit of the majority while protecting the rights of the minority.
2. The federal government is the entity most suitable for addressing societal issues such as resource constraints.

In sum, Modern Monetary Theory recognizes economic society as a network of obligations supported by a unit of currency and a set of laws established by the government. Just as the government was responsible for creating the currency and the laws, the government is responsible for adapting laws to modern circumstances including our increased interdependence. 
Footnote: From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synergy:

In the natural world, synergistic phenomena are ubiquitous, ranging from physics (for example, the different combinations of quarks that produce protons and neutrons) to chemistry (a popular example is water, a compound of hydrogen and oxygen), to the cooperative interactions among the genes in genomes, the division of labor in bacterial colonies, the synergies of scale in multi-cellular organisms, as well as the many different kinds of synergies produced by socially-organized groups, from honeybee colonies to wolf packs and human societies: compare stigmergy, a mechanism of indirect coordination between agents or actions that results in the self-assembly of complex systems. Even the tools and technologies that are widespread in the natural world represent important sources of synergistic effects. The tools that enabled early hominins to become systematic big-game hunters is a primordial human example. In the context of organizational behavior, ... a cohesive group is more than the sum of its parts

MMT Elevator Speech (with links)

There are 2 aspects of MMT:

1. MMT is an improved (much clearer and more straightforward) description of how existing monetary and banking systems work.
2. MMT proposes a government job guarantee (employer of last resort) as a tool to reduce unemployment and act as an automatic fiscal stabilizer with regard to inflation.  (Note that we already have valuable automatic fiscal stabilizers in the form of income taxes and welfare benefits.)

#2 is substantially untested, although it was used successfully during the Great Depression to create and maintain national parks, for example.  #1 is unassailable as it is just a description of how things work.

Here's a chart I drew showing the evolution of selected economic schools, with MMT being the focus: Evolution of Selected Economic Schools

Note that MMT draws from institutional economics (recognizing the role of large institutions as well as classical markets), chartalism (the basics of fiat currency), Keynesianism, financial instability considerations, and a sectoral balance perspective (accounting based economics).

I also wrote something of a The National "Debt" for Dummies -- not intended to be condescending but rather to be easy to understand: The Socrates Show, with guest Pete Peterson.

The best textbook presentation of MMT economics that I have seen is Eric Tymoigne's Money and Banking.
---
Post originally written February 2019.  Additional insight July 2020:
A major advantage of MMT, compared to conventional economics, is the level of discussion.  MMT economics is a view of the monetary system at a higher level than is common with the conventional wisdom.   Conventional wisdom is overloaded with assumptions, graphs, and jargon from a more detailed level which obscures the big picture.  The big picture shown by conventional economics is that government debt is like household or business debt.  The big picture shown by MMT is that paying back the debt is trivial for a currency issuing government.  Thus, the government debt is different from personal or business debt.  Conventional wisdom eventually gets to this point also, but only after obscuring the situation through discussion of government bonds, interest rates, and central bank procedures, and, often, misleading analogies to household and business finances.

The conventional economic wisdom is an example of excessive reductionism, comparable to other evils such as race reductionism.

Identity Politics and Nationalism

The thoughts here were triggered by a discussion in ForeignAffairs between Stacey Abrams and Francis Fukuyama.

Fukuyama made a couple of interesting points:

The first major expression of modern identity politics was nineteenth-century European nationalism, when cultural groups began to demand recognition in the form of statehood... Even as Americans seek to right injustices suffered by specific social groups, they need to balance their small-group identities with a more integrative identity needed to create a cohesive national democratic community.

As a humanist, the disadvantages of basing government on tribal/national/ethnic identities are clear to me.  Over and above all, we are all humans and must somehow work together or perish separately.  Identity politics goes against this by definition.  Socialism is a better way to go since it, by definition, emphasizes the greater society.

Ideologies and Principles

Nobody likes an ideologue.  Everybody likes a person who has principles.  What is the difference? 

Ideology is often used to refer to a political belief system.  A principle is a concept or value that is a guide for behavior.  Thus, ideology is more purely political, whereas a principle is more personal and more basic.  Ideologies are based upon principles.  Ideologies are often attacked by political opponents.  Principles are rarely challenged directly.  The common perception is that ideologies may vary from principles due to some form of corruption.

As an example, the ideology that I identify with most closely is Democratic Socialism.  My underlying values include majority rule and protection of minority rights.  Many people despise Democratic Socialists, but few are against majority rule and protection of minority rights.  I myself find such an ideological label (Democratic Socialist) as unappealing, as I would prefer to deal with issues on a case by case basis, rather than as an ideologue.

An ideology is based on a mental model of the world.  But all such models should be subject to reality checks.  Principles are much simpler (the concept of majority rule is simpler than the idea that democratic socialism is the best way to implement majority rule), and thus the mental models involved are more fundamental.

Kindness, Cultural Savagery, and the Democratic Response to Trump

David Brooks has written a couple of good columns (for my taste) lately:

• Kindness Is a Skill
• Kamala Harris, Call-Out Star

His reference to cultural savagery in the first really hit home, and his Kindness column contains some good tips for getting past that.  I'll keep it handy.

The Kamala Harris article (review of her memoir) provides good information and an intelligent take on unfolding 2020 presidential election campaign.

There are some ironic juxtapositions at play.  Brooks writes approvingly of Harris as ruthless and as someone with the ability to spot the villain in any situation.  That would seem to be at odds with his calls in the kindness article to fight the culture of savagery.  But Brooks puts it well in saying, "The immediate problem of Democratic voters is Donald Trump, and the culture of shamelessness he has instigated... Harris’s fearless, cut-the-crap rhetorical style will probably serve her well in this pugilistic political moment".  

It's a fine line, and one that I'd also like to walk -- How to combat cultural savagery on the one hand, while speaking clearly and forcefully against Trump on the other?  From my perspective, this has been one of Bernie Sanders' strong points.  He has embraced many of Trump's constituents by legitimizing their grievances.  But he has been quite clear in his statements regarding Trump.  While Brooks says, 

Democrats will want unity. They won’t want somebody who essentially runs against the Democratic establishment (Bernie Sanders); they’ll want somebody who embodies it (Harris). They’ll want somebody who seems able to pulverize Trump in a debate (Harris).

This is not the Sanders I know.  From the NY Times on 9/5/2016, 

Outside Senator Bernie Sanders’s first general-election rally for Hillary Clinton on Monday, a small group of Clinton supporters and former Sanders backers glared at one another...  The division is exactly the kind Mr. Sanders hopes to avoid in November. It is also why he spent 36 minutes at Lebanon High School here urging people to vote for Mrs. Clinton and laying out why he believes that Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is a “pathological liar.”  

So I guess I still disagree with Brooks with regard to Bernie Sanders and the composition of the Democratic party / left wing.  But we're moving closer together in outlook.

Tactical Democrats

Kevin Drum has a post up claiming Dems moved to the left because it became more politically viable.  Obama and both Clintons were tactical centrists in this view.  They were always in favor of more left wing policies, but were more conservative in public because of perceived tactical advantage.  Here's my response:

I'm with Kevin, but only up to a point. The tactical centrists were clearly losing as 2016 rolled around. Republicans had pretty much taken over all branches of government, federal and state. So the smart Democrats realized that they needed better tactics which happened to align with better policies in some instances. 

But, there were and are honest differences of opinion with regard to policy. Many centrists were especially were fixated on fiscal responsibility.  This was a tactical mistake in addition to being a policy mistake, IMO. The fiscal doves have been proven right, and thus many Dem centrists are letting go of fiscal responsibility in favor of things like Medicare for all.  

On the other hand,  many centrists are more hawkish in supporting American values and economic preferences in foreign affairs. With the renewal of the Cold War, many centrist Dems are moving to the right on foreign policy, and this remains a real split within the Democratic party.

In the big picture, as others have said here before me, the Democrats need a vision that is both morally sound and tactically effective. You can't have one without the other.

Idiocracy

Idiocracy was a 2006 film that depicted a future dysfunctional human society.  One striking element of this dystopia was the prevalence of malfunctioning machines across the landscape.  I feel that this is the direction we are headed with our over-reliance on technology and investment in stupid machines such as self-driving cars.

The point is that immensely complicated machines such as "autonomous vehicles" are expensive to  maintain.  We are trying to create an inordinately complex system which we will not be able to maintain properly.  Truly intelligent creatures such as humans have evolved mechanisms for self-maintenance, death, and reproduction.  We are building machines with no such mechanisms.  Already our society is drowning in junk.

We are fast becoming an idiotic society and should change our focus to sustainability.

Poetic Justice in Trump Victory

Lately I've been thinking about NY Times columnist David Brooks.  Brooks was a leading proponent of the 2003 Iraq War, and followed this up by supporting John McCain and Sarah Palin.  He was against Obama and supported Republicans throughout most of the Obama presidency.

One thing lacking from the Obama presidency was accountability for the misdeeds that were done in the preceding presidency of George W. Bush.  The Iraq War was a disaster of epic proportions, and the housing bubble and collapse were aided and abetted by top Wall Street and government officials.  Obama perhaps did not have the power to tackle these misdeeds and hold the perpetrators accountable.  He would have been opposed by the establishment, including relative centrists such as David Brooks.

Only with the election of Trump have influential people such as Brooks come to support accountability in the executive branch.  Now we are getting investigations into government corruption.  There have been a number of charges brought so far.  Importantly, the charges relate more to business as usual than to do any particular crimes of the Trump Administration.  Trump and his associates are more prone to lie blatantly, so they are easier targets, but otherwise the nature of the crimes is not so much different from business as usual -- i.e. going over the line in lobbying activities, taking advantage of political connections for international wheeling and dealing, political dirty tricks, etc.

Thus, in his perverse way, Trump has been a godsend for clean politics in the United States.

A Letter to Supporters of David Brooks

Brooks built his career as an advocate for the 2003 Iraq War (at The Weekly Standard).  This led to the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqis, greatly strengthened Iran's influence in Iraq, destroyed the viability of international institutions, led to ISIS and the Syrian civil war with mass emigration of refugees to Europe, and brought us the Trump presidency, Brexit and Gilets Jaunes.  In April 2003, Brooks predicted a generation of stability and prosperity due to the success of the war.  In this spirit, he supported Sarah Palin as John McCain's VP choice in 2008.  He has been wrong on a truly epic level.

Now it is said that he's changed.  He is leading a new Aspen Institute initiative to understand and reduce the growing fragmentation, alienation, and division around the country.  I have finished the article we started in on the other night at Henry Ford Village -- Students Learn From People They Love.  He recommends building good relationships!

How would you design a school if you wanted to put relationship quality at the core? Come to think of it, how would you design a Congress?  

In my opinion, this is too little, too late.  Brooks and his Republican / neocon cohort (John Bolton was a fellow writer for the Weekly Standard) contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths and immense chaos around the world.  Brooks shows no self-awareness, but rather ignores his previous mistakes.  Of course, what bothers me is that, without evidence,  he casts people of my political persuasion as extremists on the same level as Trump.  (This is a recurring theme and I will provide citations upon request.)  I actually don't read Brooks as reaching out to build a good relationship with people like me.  When Brooks starts writing about cooperating on things I deeply believe in,  such as the use of democratic principles in resolving international disputes, as opposed to unilateral war based upon false grounds, then I'll take him more seriously.  

ADDENDA

Read The Collapse of the Dream Palaces to appreciate Brooks' contempt for those who were right about the Iraq War and the tragic events that would follow.  

For an example of someone who made of an effort in coming to terms with his mistakes, see Robert McNamara:

In 1982, McNamara joined several other former national security officials in urging that the United States pledge to not use nuclear weapons first in Europe in the event of hostilities; subsequently he proposed the elimination of nuclear weapons as an element of NATO's defense posture...  McNamara's memoir, In Retrospect, published in 1995, presented an account and analysis of the Vietnam War from his point of view. According to his lengthy New York Times obituary, "[h]e concluded well before leaving the Pentagon that the war was futile, but he did not share that insight with the public until late in life. In 1995, he took a stand against his own conduct of the war, confessing in a memoir that it was 'wrong, terribly wrong'." In return, he faced a "firestorm of scorn" at that time. 

Flaw in Our Democracy

No one will be elected on a platform of delivering the bad news, i.e.

• The planet's environment is reaching its limits with regard to sustain human life and civilization as currently configured.
• Technology will not save us.  
• We need to cutback -- reduce our lifestyle and freedom to invest in polluting and dangerous technologies.

Difference Between New Keynesian Economics and Modern Monetary Theory

Peter Cooper (heteconomist) has a post today on One of the Fundamental Differences Between Modern Monetary Theory and New Keynesian Economics.  That got me thinking and I'd like to simplify what he said.

New Keynesian Economics (NKE) is the current standard for Democrats in the United States and (neo)liberals around the world.  See the Evolution of Selected Economic Schools.  It was developed around 1980 as a response to difficulties that the U.S. and other economies were facing after decades of experience with Keynesian economics as the predominant paradigm.  Specifically, inflation had become a problem.

At root is the issue of limitations on the power of government with regard to macroeconomic policy.  Households, businesses, and small countries have a limited amount of power to create their own money and mobilize workers to solve problems.  Large and powerful nations, such as the United States since World War II, have a much greater capacity to do this.  Even so, there are limits.  Creating too much money can cause inflation.  Too much direct management of the nation's economy can restrict individual freedom, resulting in personal incentives that differ dramatically from governmental incentives.  This is generally recognized as the problem with Communism.

The main difference between NKE and Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is on the limits of government power to control the economy..  NKE relies upon classical concepts of economics in which governments are small and weak, not much different from businesses.  In this line of thinking, governments should generally balance their budgets.  Only when unemployment is exceptionally high should governments run deficits to stimulate the economy.  Other tools, such as manipulation of government interest rates and regulation are deemed appropriate for managing the economy during more normal times.

MMT, on the other hand, claims that the NKE limit of government spending is needlessly restrictive for large and prosperous nations, while tinkering with government interest rates (monetary policy) is generally ineffective.  Governments can and should do more to achieve societal goals.  Inflation can be addressed more directly when it becomes a serious problem. 

In essence, NKE economists feel that MMT will fail for the same reasons Communism failed -- too much government control of the economy cannot work.  MMT economists feel that NKE will fail for the same reasons classical capitalism failed -- free markets by themselves do not address many societal failures.

Compounding this basic philosophical difference, NKE and neoclassical (mainstream Republican) economists frequently employ an almost religious taboo against discussing the appropriate boundaries of government involvement in the economy.  Their economic preferences are accorded the status of natural laws.  Understandably, this infuriates MMT economists and is a major problem with economic discourse.  Just as religious dogma has been used historically to support the status quo, economic dogma is used to support the status quo.

For a good example of how the NKE / neoclassical dogma is wrong and counterproductive, please see The Socrates Show, with guest Pete Peterson.

Trump-Russia Parallel to Al Qaeda-Saddam Hussein

In my view, most of the Trump-Putin collusion stories are nonsense, as is the notion that Russia played a significant role in Trump's victory over Clinton. I see a reaction in this regard from liberals and centrists that is similar to the reaction from conservatives and centrists in 2003 to the charge that Saddam Hussein was somehow in cahoots with Al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks.  The evidence was bogus, but anyone pointing that out would be accused of being a sympathizer with the demons involved -- Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

Similarly today, anyone pointing the bogus nature of the Trump-Putin collusion charges is branded a supporter of Trump and/or Putin.  Just in the Iraq War, the end result will be disastrous if emotion is allowed to overcome reason.  The Iraq War proved to be damaging to U.S. credibility and thus to our efforts to combat Islamic terrorists.  Liberals and centrists threaten to similarly damage their credibility.  There is plenty to criticize in the Republican party and Trump administrative without making bogus charges which will end up supporting the Republican case.

Some Maxims

Some Maxims

1. Meditation can make you a better and healthier person, but you're not going to become "enlightened", whatever that means. (Substituting "prayer" for meditation and "go to heaven" for attaining enlightenment yields an equally valid maxim.)
   1A Corollary: Claims that enlightenment is a reasonable goal should be fair game.
2. "Government can't do anything right" is a self-fulfilling prophecy when government is bought and paid for by those who don't want the government to do much.
3. Capitalism's main strength is also its greatest weakness.  Our world has been totally transformed by capitalism, and this shows no sign of stopping short of the destruction of human civilization.
4. "Racism" is often used to describe things that have little to do with race, therefore needlessly provoking backlash.  (Or are those people who voted for Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal absolved of bigotry?)