Wednesday, August 13, 2008
back during bittergate
With the revival of the "elitism" charge against Obama -- including by none less than Cokie Roberts, herself the daughter of a famous Congressman and product of exotic Louisiana and expensive DC private schools -- I decided to post my various posts on the topic at the time of "bittergate." But first a thought about Hawaii, where I lived for four years, two in Kailua where Obama is staying: the most striking thing about it for me is the heavy military presence. Obama stayed within spitting distance of huge marine base, and there are multiple other naval, army and air force bases on Oahu alone. With all those military personnel, could it really be that exotic?!
OK back to bittergate:
1. I sent the following as an email to Maureen Dowd, whom I normally love to read. The article is here.
Sigh. Et tu, Mauree? I kept waiting for a trace of the Dowd irony in your piece but to no avail. Well your argument is as silly as every other "my Irish Catholic and/or working class roots have just been spat upon" columnist, and my there are a lot of you! He was not talking about why people love guns or anything else in his list. He was talking about why people in small, economically devastated towns might be resistant to his campaign. And last I checked, whatever your -- or Joan Walsh's or Chris Matthews' -- roots you are no longer qualified to speak for those people. But the evidence is that they are bitter, and far less offended than their well-to-do cousins in the nation's journalistic elite who love to wear their populist origins in their sleeve. As for the drift of Kennedy Democrats to Reagan Republicanism, that began with the defeat of the populist Hubert Humphrey and reached its peak with the populist Mondale. Poor egghead Dukakis got the second highest share of the popular vote of any Democrat between 1964 and 1996, after Jimmy Carter.
2. The reference to Joan Walsh was for this in which she mostly defended him but still found it necessary to trot out her "Irish working class roots" against his purported elitism: "Barack Obama does have an affluent, educated, Ivy League sense of self-righteousness and entitlement that my Irish Catholic working-class side occasionally chafes at. So does Michelle Obama." To which I responded as follows:
the sound of one hand clapping
[Read the article: Obama and the white working class]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]
Speaking as an Obama supporter I would give one thumb up to both you and Obama. To Obama because as effective as Obama was in his response, it still begs the question of why he lumps all those issues together as things that need to be explained and, implicitly criticized. (The two that I thought were problematic were religion, given his frequent description of himself as a devout christian, and anti-trade sentiments, given his frequent reference to the evils of trade agreements). To you because of that unconvincing little riff about your working class background and the Obamas (and Obama supporters') elitist ones. Never mind Obama, whose background is well-known and not all that privileged. Michelle Obama is a working class girl who made good. And you, for all your working class origins, are one too. So let's drop the populist posturing, please.
Permalink Saturday, April 12, 2008 12:48 AM
3. The really inane piece of reporting on this on Salon, however, was this piece of faux populist posturing by Michael Lind, to which I responded as follows
#
#
populists and progressives
[Read the article: The rubes and the elites]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]
This recycling of old cliches is disingenuously incomplete. First, let's be clear who the counterparts to the populists are. They are the "progressives" -- a term those who sneer at "goo-goo" types avoid because of its positive connotation -- heir to the Roosevelt/Wilson (hence bipartisan) efforts to reform everything from political machines to the corporate malfeasance. Second, let's be clear why the New Deal "populist" coalition broke down: it was the direct result of the civil rights movement and the attempts to give blacks a fair shake in the coalition which led to the defeat of the great populist Hubert Humphrey. The "Reagan Democrat" phenomenon was really a Wallace/Nixon Democrat phenomenon. Third let's be clear on what Obama was trying to do -- BRIDGE the existing schism by getting the progressives to be a little more understanding of the populists. Last person to do this? FDR. OK maybe Clinton, too. Fourth, let's be clear on the win/lose records of the two types -- Carter was a progressive; Mondale, the biggest Democratic loser in since WW II a populist. The article attempts to fudge this by conflating "populists" with "southerners" and "cultural conservatives." But the "southern strategy" has been a best since Gore, the southerner lost the south. Ironically, Dukakis actually got the highest share of the popular vote of any Democrat between 1976 and 1996, losing 53-47 and ran much closer in the once-Republican industrial Midwest showing the potential of winning these states which Clinton (with help from Perot) eventually did and every Democrat has done since (except Ohio). Finally, in the end, let's be clear on who loses the most when the white working class "populists" vote Republican on "cultural issues" because this that or the other progressive seemed somehow, inexplicably, more elitist than Bush. They, the white working class, do. Maybe it's time to start building a party without them. They are, after all, dwindling in numbers.
Permalink Tuesday, April 15, 2008 12:50 AM
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Predicting campaign 08
A year ago, when the first reports of Obama's fundraising success emerged, I wrote the following on the NYT's politics blog, The Caucus. I'm starting to think it was prescient! (Note the reasoning.)
*
My prediction: A hung convention turns to Al Gore as a compromise candidate. (With so many big states going early now and two candidates with so much money and support, neither will be able to knock the other out with "momentum." And Gore is the one candidate who is likely to be acceptable to both camps — tho' just barely to the Clintons.
— Posted by Arun R. Swamy
* The original is comment no. 312 here
*
My prediction: A hung convention turns to Al Gore as a compromise candidate. (With so many big states going early now and two candidates with so much money and support, neither will be able to knock the other out with "momentum." And Gore is the one candidate who is likely to be acceptable to both camps — tho' just barely to the Clintons.
— Posted by Arun R. Swamy
* The original is comment no. 312 here
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Has New York Lost Its Soul?
Some months ago I posted this to an article in the New York Times. #
66. The link to the original blog is here.
October 4th,
2007
4:54 pm
Well this is a subject close to my heart but I just don’t know the answer. I love NY more than any place on earth but every time I move there I end up leaving … and wishing I could move back. I lived there in the mid 70s, early to mid 80s (lower east side and Tribeca) and for a year during the Giuliani era, ending just before 9/11. I just moved to LA from western Massachusetts where the only solace I could find was my ability to drive down to The City in 3 hours — for an afternoon, a weekend, a week it didnt matter.
In the early 80s when I was a high school teacher on the upper west I assigned my students two NYT articles to read on the “neighborhood preservation” debate one denoucning efforts to “clean up” 42nd St. (and yes I do miss the old Times Square and hate the new), the other about efforts on the Upper East Side to keep chains out. My students were all from the hip UWS and couldn’t care less about the snooty UES but now I notice that it’s Upper Broadway that is the biggest victim of chain mania while the UES looks like a quaint old NY neighborhood.
But are chains necessarily the problem? My one complaint about NY in the 70s and 80s is that you couldnt get a decent cup of coffee there — it was either cappuccino in an italian pastry shop or deli bilge. Moving to Berkeley which had a real cafe scene was a real discovery. The only real cafe I knew of in lower Manhattan other than the afore mentioned pastry shops with tiny tables, and where you could never hang out and read a book was the Cloister Cafe on E. 9th St. Sadly the Cloister Cafe went upscale and then out of business but it’s been replaced by many cafes in the area. For the most part, Starbuck’s has created the market for indie cafes (in NY and most of the country) not destroyed existing cafes.
So what do I miss about NY of the 70s and 80s when I visit now and which could plausibly be described as soul? Independent bookstores — as far as I can tell only the Strand remains. The Pageant, also once on 9th St., which appears in Woody Allen’s Hannah and her sisters, had three stories of old books and maps; now gone online, last I checked. The Village area used to have little bookstores all over the place, now gone. Small repertory movie theaters like the old St. Mark’s. Cheap good places to eat all over like those places that served huge helpings of pork chops and Spanish rice in the neighborhood that became Chelsea. The Odessa on Avenue A remains but what else? And the grit, which I do miss, also produced a kind of egalitarianism — everyone dressed scruffy (the better not to be mugged I suppose) whereas now people where their class status literally on their sleeves.
But for all that, if I could afford it, Id move there in a second still. NY’s soul for me is the street energy — people bustling rubbing shoulders walking. Long Beach where I live now has lots of indie cafes but most people drive which means they are still just islands in a sea of freeways. There is little interaction and when it does occur, it turns out most people dont have much to say.
So in the end Im reminded of an essay I assigned that high school class years ago along with those newspaper clippings. I think it was by H.L. Mencken — or else some equally iconic NY author. And it remarked on how the hallmark of NY is that it is always changing and people are always complaining that the true NY is dead. I guess I agree with all the people who say the soul of NY is New Yorkers — and the physical layout of Manhattan which forces them to acknowledge each other whether they want to or not.
66. The link to the original blog is here.
October 4th,
2007
4:54 pm
Well this is a subject close to my heart but I just don’t know the answer. I love NY more than any place on earth but every time I move there I end up leaving … and wishing I could move back. I lived there in the mid 70s, early to mid 80s (lower east side and Tribeca) and for a year during the Giuliani era, ending just before 9/11. I just moved to LA from western Massachusetts where the only solace I could find was my ability to drive down to The City in 3 hours — for an afternoon, a weekend, a week it didnt matter.
In the early 80s when I was a high school teacher on the upper west I assigned my students two NYT articles to read on the “neighborhood preservation” debate one denoucning efforts to “clean up” 42nd St. (and yes I do miss the old Times Square and hate the new), the other about efforts on the Upper East Side to keep chains out. My students were all from the hip UWS and couldn’t care less about the snooty UES but now I notice that it’s Upper Broadway that is the biggest victim of chain mania while the UES looks like a quaint old NY neighborhood.
But are chains necessarily the problem? My one complaint about NY in the 70s and 80s is that you couldnt get a decent cup of coffee there — it was either cappuccino in an italian pastry shop or deli bilge. Moving to Berkeley which had a real cafe scene was a real discovery. The only real cafe I knew of in lower Manhattan other than the afore mentioned pastry shops with tiny tables, and where you could never hang out and read a book was the Cloister Cafe on E. 9th St. Sadly the Cloister Cafe went upscale and then out of business but it’s been replaced by many cafes in the area. For the most part, Starbuck’s has created the market for indie cafes (in NY and most of the country) not destroyed existing cafes.
So what do I miss about NY of the 70s and 80s when I visit now and which could plausibly be described as soul? Independent bookstores — as far as I can tell only the Strand remains. The Pageant, also once on 9th St., which appears in Woody Allen’s Hannah and her sisters, had three stories of old books and maps; now gone online, last I checked. The Village area used to have little bookstores all over the place, now gone. Small repertory movie theaters like the old St. Mark’s. Cheap good places to eat all over like those places that served huge helpings of pork chops and Spanish rice in the neighborhood that became Chelsea. The Odessa on Avenue A remains but what else? And the grit, which I do miss, also produced a kind of egalitarianism — everyone dressed scruffy (the better not to be mugged I suppose) whereas now people where their class status literally on their sleeves.
But for all that, if I could afford it, Id move there in a second still. NY’s soul for me is the street energy — people bustling rubbing shoulders walking. Long Beach where I live now has lots of indie cafes but most people drive which means they are still just islands in a sea of freeways. There is little interaction and when it does occur, it turns out most people dont have much to say.
So in the end Im reminded of an essay I assigned that high school class years ago along with those newspaper clippings. I think it was by H.L. Mencken — or else some equally iconic NY author. And it remarked on how the hallmark of NY is that it is always changing and people are always complaining that the true NY is dead. I guess I agree with all the people who say the soul of NY is New Yorkers — and the physical layout of Manhattan which forces them to acknowledge each other whether they want to or not.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Time to Blame the Broker in the Mideast Mess
Now that the Bush administration, like every other waning U.S. presidency, is making noises about bringing peace to the Middle East, it might be be worth pondering why the last such attempt, in Clinton's final year failed. I wrote the following piece in the fall of 2000. It still represents a cogent and timely analysis of US peacemaking efforts in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"Since the recent round of violence broke out in the Middle East, U.S. officials have attempted, imperfectly, to avoid blaming either side for the events. Increasingly, though, the question is whether U.S. efforts to play the honest broker themselves contributed to the current conflict.
"Two reasons for blaming the broker have already been articulated by other observers. First, as former President Jimmy Carter predicted over the summer, the administration’s decision to publicly blame Arafat for the failure of the talks have eroded Palestinian confidence in U.S. neutrality. Second, many media reports now suggest that the Clinton administration allowed Barak’s timetable and preferred mode of negotiating to dictate the negotiating process.
"By far the most important reason for questioning U.S. responsibility for the current crisis is the way American authorities handled the inherent tension between the roles of guaranteeing the security of one party while mediating between both. Had the United States chided Israel, for whom U.S. support is never in question, it might have been an act of statesmanship, but the Americans had little credibility to sustain a rebuke of Arafat.
"All of this is made worse by the fact that the American security guarantee is extended to the stronger party in the dispute. In this situation, the burden of proof is on the broker to reassure the weaker party it’s security concerns will also be met. Instead, the United States has been willing to justify an agreement that gives the Palestinians less than they are entitled to under international law, and that would compromise Palestinian security.
"The difference between sovereignty and control is crucial not symbolic. Without sovereignty, Arabs in East Jerusalem would have no protection against any actions the Israelis took on security grounds. “Control” is the same halfway house that the hardline Israeli government of Menachem Begin offered Palestinians in the West Bank generally and is essentially what the Palestinian authority enjoys in many West Bank towns today.
"Recent Israeli actions in these towns make clear how inadequate a compromise “control” is. Matters are made worse by the Israeli insistence that Jewish settlers be allowed to remain in the West Bank and Gaza, with Israeli protection, even though the settlers would be a constant flashpoint for confrontation and an invitation to Israeli intervention.
"Both U.S. and Israeli officials have sometimes suggested that the Palestinians should accept Barak’s offer because it is more than they have now or could hope to win by force. The argument is both specious and dangerous. It raises the question of why a U.S.-brokered negotiation is necessary to produce an outcome dictated by the balance of power and inevitably invites Palestinian efforts to use force to alter that balance. Palestinians have not forgotten, if Israelis have, that it was the high cost to Israeli society of the intifada that led to the 1993 Oslo accords.
"The contrast between the recent Camp David fiasco and the original Camp David agreement could not be more stark. Then, as now, the Arabs insisted on complete withdrawal from territories conquered in the 1967 War (except for the Gaza strip which it was understood would be part of a Palestinian settlement). Then, as now, Israel insisted on keeping some gains, for its own security and to protect settlers. Then, as now, the argument was made that Egypt would gain more from a partial withdrawal than it could hope to win by force.
"In Camp David I, however, American pressure and security assurances led Israel to withdraw from the entire Sinai. Israel was rewarded with twenty years of peace, while the U.S. won a new ally. The loser, of course, was Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who began the process and was assassinated for his troubles.
"Both the original Camp David accords and the record of the Palestinian authority show that, even in the Middle East, good fences make good neighbors. If the United States wishes to play a positive role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the American security guarantee has to become an instrument for peace, not a license for Israel to act with impunity."
"Since the recent round of violence broke out in the Middle East, U.S. officials have attempted, imperfectly, to avoid blaming either side for the events. Increasingly, though, the question is whether U.S. efforts to play the honest broker themselves contributed to the current conflict.
"Two reasons for blaming the broker have already been articulated by other observers. First, as former President Jimmy Carter predicted over the summer, the administration’s decision to publicly blame Arafat for the failure of the talks have eroded Palestinian confidence in U.S. neutrality. Second, many media reports now suggest that the Clinton administration allowed Barak’s timetable and preferred mode of negotiating to dictate the negotiating process.
"By far the most important reason for questioning U.S. responsibility for the current crisis is the way American authorities handled the inherent tension between the roles of guaranteeing the security of one party while mediating between both. Had the United States chided Israel, for whom U.S. support is never in question, it might have been an act of statesmanship, but the Americans had little credibility to sustain a rebuke of Arafat.
"All of this is made worse by the fact that the American security guarantee is extended to the stronger party in the dispute. In this situation, the burden of proof is on the broker to reassure the weaker party it’s security concerns will also be met. Instead, the United States has been willing to justify an agreement that gives the Palestinians less than they are entitled to under international law, and that would compromise Palestinian security.
"The difference between sovereignty and control is crucial not symbolic. Without sovereignty, Arabs in East Jerusalem would have no protection against any actions the Israelis took on security grounds. “Control” is the same halfway house that the hardline Israeli government of Menachem Begin offered Palestinians in the West Bank generally and is essentially what the Palestinian authority enjoys in many West Bank towns today.
"Recent Israeli actions in these towns make clear how inadequate a compromise “control” is. Matters are made worse by the Israeli insistence that Jewish settlers be allowed to remain in the West Bank and Gaza, with Israeli protection, even though the settlers would be a constant flashpoint for confrontation and an invitation to Israeli intervention.
"Both U.S. and Israeli officials have sometimes suggested that the Palestinians should accept Barak’s offer because it is more than they have now or could hope to win by force. The argument is both specious and dangerous. It raises the question of why a U.S.-brokered negotiation is necessary to produce an outcome dictated by the balance of power and inevitably invites Palestinian efforts to use force to alter that balance. Palestinians have not forgotten, if Israelis have, that it was the high cost to Israeli society of the intifada that led to the 1993 Oslo accords.
"The contrast between the recent Camp David fiasco and the original Camp David agreement could not be more stark. Then, as now, the Arabs insisted on complete withdrawal from territories conquered in the 1967 War (except for the Gaza strip which it was understood would be part of a Palestinian settlement). Then, as now, Israel insisted on keeping some gains, for its own security and to protect settlers. Then, as now, the argument was made that Egypt would gain more from a partial withdrawal than it could hope to win by force.
"In Camp David I, however, American pressure and security assurances led Israel to withdraw from the entire Sinai. Israel was rewarded with twenty years of peace, while the U.S. won a new ally. The loser, of course, was Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who began the process and was assassinated for his troubles.
"Both the original Camp David accords and the record of the Palestinian authority show that, even in the Middle East, good fences make good neighbors. If the United States wishes to play a positive role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the American security guarantee has to become an instrument for peace, not a license for Israel to act with impunity."
Heel, Tony, Heel
There can be few sights more embarrassing than watching British PM Tony Blair, once again, attempt fruitlessly to live up to his promise that the US-UK "alliance" somehow gives the British Empire-turned-Emirate some influence over the use and abuse of American power. Blair's sad little dance around his desire -- and everyone else's -- to see an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and the US insistence on giving Israel its head only heightened the impression that he has turned the "special relatoinship" between London and Washington into one between a country squire and his overeager retriever. While Israel is let off the leash to go and mangle innocent neighbors, Tony is called sharply to heel.
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