Can We Call It What It Is Now?

It's funny, sad really, because I have been meaning to write about the Park51 nontroversy for a while now. It's been all over the news and blogs, but with our painstakingly short national attention span, I figured the issue would have fizzled out by the time that I got around to forming a post. Clearly I underestimated the utter stupidity and ignorance of the masses.

Glenn Greenwald has a very thorough (and now, prescient) piece about the debate over the Park51 Islamic community center. Read the whole thing. I don't agree with Greenwald entirely; I do think that the issue is a bit of a distraction and a wedge issue created to bring out the mouth-breathers and generally keep any discussion off of the economy. Let's face it - the midterms will primarily be in large part about economic matters. And Democrats - if they haven't already - will begin hammering away at the Bush/Republican economic legacy day and night in key races. So while the Park51 mosque shouldn't be dismissed as a distraction in its entirety, the label is not without its merits.

The reality is the core of the issue is exactly what Greenwald posits: it's all about good ol' fashioned American racism and xenophobia. Would we be having this debate if the construction in question were a synagogue, a Christian megachurch, or a Catholic church? The fact that the proposed site is near Ground Zero is immaterial, but rather a convenient way to conflate the debate and ignite anti-Muslim sentiment. Don't believe me? Check the links in Greenwald's piece; mosques are now running into anti-Muslim resistance across the nation.

But aside from that, let's let the actions of the bigots speak for themselves: today a NYC cab driver was slashed and stabbed after answering affirmatively to a question of his Muslim faith. Now a mosque in California has been vandalized with a sign decrying the worship of 'the god of terrorism' near Ground Zero. And I am sure these will not be isolated incidents.

I am confident that the Park51 center will go forward as planned, and admirably, a large contingent of families of 9/11 victims have come out in support of its construction. But the path will needlessly ugly.

Dysfunctional And Corrupt Is An Understatement

Paul Krugman hits the salient points of the pathetic 'debate' over the fate of the Bush tax cuts in his column this week:

What’s at stake here? According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, as opposed to following the Obama proposal, would cost the federal government $680 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. For the sake of comparison, it took months of hard negotiations to get Congressional approval for a mere $26 billion in desperately needed aid to state and local governments.

How can this kind of giveaway be justified at a time when politicians claim to care about budget deficits? [...] No, this has nothing to do with sound economic policy. Instead, as I said, it’s about a dysfunctional and corrupt political culture, in which Congress won’t take action to revive the economy, pleads poverty when it comes to protecting the jobs of schoolteachers and firefighters, but declares cost no object when it comes to sparing the already wealthy even the slightest financial inconvenience. So far, the Obama administration is standing firm against this outrage. Let’s hope that it prevails in its fight. Otherwise, it will be hard not to lose all faith in America’s future.

I'm not going to try to add anything to that, because I have already done so previously. It's not about economics, or the wisdom of Nobel laureates - it's about a broken and corrupt political system where ideology prevails over reality, where the media treats both positions equally when one is absolutely full of shit, and where the liars have no incentive to stop lying. A culture where a dime of government spending must be debated for weeks and filibustered for months, but slashing revenues is always a great idea, always the right idea, and always the panacea regardless of the symptom.

Serenity Now

All of my recent entries have sounded super angry lately, so here is a picture of Mia to counterbalance that. I know I need to make a conscious effort to blog about something other than stuff that pisses me off, so consider this the first (occasional) step in that direction.

Enjoy.

The New Normal

Paul Krugman's latest column dishes up the depressing:

What lies down this path? Here’s what I consider all too likely: Two years from now unemployment will still be extremely high, quite possibly higher than it is now. But instead of taking responsibility for fixing the situation, politicians and Fed officials alike will declare that high unemployment is structural, beyond their control. And as I said, over time these excuses may turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the long-term unemployed lose their skills and their connections with the work force, and become unemployable.

I’d like to imagine that public outrage will prevent this outcome. But while Americans are indeed angry, their anger is unfocused. And so I worry that our governing elite, which just isn’t all that into the unemployed, will allow the jobs slump to go on and on and on.

But why are we facing such a grim future?

But the fearmongers are unmoved: fighting deficits, they insist, must take priority over everything else — everything else, that is, except tax cuts for the rich, which must be extended, no matter how much red ink they create.

The point is that a large part of Congress — large enough to block any action on jobs — cares a lot about taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population, but very little about the plight of Americans who can’t find work.

That's right - because Congress is effectively waging class warfare against the electorate at this point. Extend the tax cuts for the rich because you wouldn't want to raise taxes in a down economy would you? They might have to settle for a smaller yacht or skimp on that next Rolex. And you unemployed jerks are just lazy. Maybe if you got off your ass once in a while, you could find the bootstraps you need to pull yourself up.

It will probably take mass riots and street violence before anyone on Capitol Hill gets a clue about the gravity of the average American's economic dilemma. And as Krugman says, that won't be happening anytime soon. We are simply too complacent and have probably the highest tolerance for being shit upon in the developed world. It's almost as if we've become accustomed to it.