Posts Tagged ‘ideology’
Get rid of closed primaries – let independents vote!
One year ago this week, America got a wake-up call about a core problem in our politics that empowers ideological extremists and special interests…
In the tea party-driven purges of 2010, Mike Castle was considered a traitor to the conservative cause because he had a record of working across the aisle. And so they turned to activist and serial candidate Christine O’Donnell.
Keep a few things in mind. O’Donnell had just five in-state donations in the first quarter of the 2010 cycle. But in the third quarter, as the RINO-hunting fever took hold, she received a quarter-million dollars in tea party national activist cash.
On September 14, 2010, she beat Castle in a closed partisan primary in which only 32% of Republicans voted (and keep in mind that Republicans are a distinct minority in Delaware).
The result? In November, Republicans lost a Senate seat they were likely to win, especially in a GOP-leaning year…
Mayor Adrian Fenty’s story in Washington is less well known, but no less resonant. Tea party primary challenges are already infamous, but left-wing challenges to more centrist Democrats are in the process of catching up…
The real issue in his re-election, however, was his embrace of education reform, led by his controversial but nationally known schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee — one of the stars of the education reform documentary “Waiting for Superman.”
Teachers unions are among the top donors to Democratic campaigns. They expect their way to be obeyed. And they decided to use Fenty as an example. They ended up pouring about $1 million into the September closed partisan primary, in which Fenty faced City Council President Vincent Gray.
That money — and directly linked get-out-the-vote efforts — ended Fenty’s tenure as mayor despite a majority of residents saying that the city had improved under his watch…
The parties have forgotten that they are not the purpose of our politics. So here’s one reform whose time has come: Replace closed partisan primaries with open primaries — like those in California and New Hampshire and many other states — allowing independents and other candidates full access to the political process.
RTFA. There’s a bunch of details over at the original article for those of you who follow the smell of American politics – within the least progressive 2-party system ever created to satisfy the needs of corporate dollars and congressional clowns.
Open primaries only let you vote once; so, you must choose the primary you want to participate in. This whole process could be taken a couple more steps towards real democracy; but, this alone would be a big step. I would no longer have to register as a Democrat long enough to get through primary season in New Mexico – and then unregister to sleep easier as an independent.
Howard Schultz calls for a boycott of campaign contributions
Howard Schultz, the chairman and chief executive of Starbucks, has always been the kind of boss who wears his heart on his sleeve. So it came as no surprise to Starbucks employees when, on Monday, he sent out a long, passionate, companywide e-mail entitled “Leading Through Uncertain Times.”
In it, he wrote about his frustration over “the lack of cooperation and irresponsibility among elected officials as they have put partisan agendas before the people’s agenda” — creating an enormous crisis of confidence in the process. He said that Starbucks had a responsibility “to act in ways that can ease the collective anxiety inside and outside the company.” It needed to continue creating jobs. It had to maintain its generous package of employee benefits. And it was critical, Schultz wrote, for employees “to earn our customers’ trust by being respectful of their own life situations — whatever it may be.”
No, the surprise wasn’t the e-mail; it was what happened next. Although he has made his share of campaign contributions — “to candidates in both parties,” he told me on Friday — Schultz is hardly a political activist. Yet the response to his e-mail — not only from within the company but among a group of some 50 business leaders he shared it with — was so overwhelming that it galvanized him…
In effect, Schultz thinks the country should go on strike against its politicians. “The fundamental problem,” he said, “is that the lens through which Congress approaches issues is re-election. The lifeblood of their re-election campaigns is political contributions.” Schultz wants his countrymen — big donors and small; corporations and unions — to stop making political contributions in presidential and Congressional campaigns. Simple as that. Economists like to talk about how incentives change behavior. Schultz is proposing that Americans give Washington an incentive to begin acting responsibly on their behalf. It’s a beautiful idea…
He believes Congress needs to come back from the August recess now, instead of waiting until September. Then, he says, the president and Congress should hammer out a debt deal, which will restore confidence. And finally, and most importantly, they should start focusing “maniacally” on the nation’s most pressing concern: job creation. Once they’ve done that, the boycott would be lifted…
Is Schultz’s idea a long shot? Yes. Is it worth trying? You bet it is.
First, here’s a link [.pdf] to the original email to Starbucks employees, partners and the 50 CEOs outside the company.
Second, though I have been an activist in both the Republican and Democrat parties years ago – more so in the former than the latter – the contemptible, opportunist and egregious policies of most of our politicians was enough for me to turn my back on both their houses decades ago. I haven’t contributed a penny to either party’s electoral campaigns since the 1950′s.
What I have done and continue to do is support progressive political action within and without the Democratic Party. If I lived in one of the mythical enclaves where moderate Republicans who care about working people still live and breathe, I would do the same – as I did in the past. That’s not very likely in New Mexico.
As a cranky old geek living on my social security check supplemented by a couple of geek investments [no - I still don't give public equities advice] I can’t afford to donate much of anything, anyway. So, I will continue to advocate for progressive politics, modern economics from Keynes to Leontiev, existential solutions to social, economic and political questions. None of which would I ever expect to find embraced by either dogpile of semi-useless politicians.
Go for it, Howard! Though buying “local” is our usual style, I’ll stop by for a coffee, this weekend, when we come to town for grocery shopping.
In 2011, the 4th of July has become Independents Day
As we celebrated Independence Day at the start of a long hot campaign season, it is worth remembering that patriotism is not the same thing as partisanship.
Our first president, George Washington said, “I was no party man myself, and the first wish of my heart was, if parties did exist, to reconcile them…”
And the third president — and author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, observed: “I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all…”
The fact is that 41% of Americans describe themselves as independents — as opposed to Democrats or Republicans — according to an April Washington Post/ABC News poll. Independents are the largest and fastest-growing segment of the electorate. Back in 1945, they made up 15%…
…And the growth of independent voters has occurred precisely as the two parties have become more ideologically polarized than at any time in our recent history…
Define liberal brains by complexity, conservative brains by fear
This is going to sound sort of obvious, but here we go: A study from University College London published this week in Current Biology has discovered that there are actually differences in the brains of liberals and conservatives. Specifically, liberals’ brains tend to be bigger in the area that deals with processing complex ideas and situations, while conservatives’ brains are bigger in the area that processes fear.
According to the report: “We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala.”
People with larger amygdalae respond to perceived threats with more aggression and “are more sensitive to threatening facial expressions.” The anterior cingulate cortex, however, “monitors uncertainty and conflict.” “Thus,” says the report, “it is conceivable that individuals with a larger ACC have a higher capacity to tolerate uncertainty and conflicts, allowing them to accept more liberal views.”
The question remains about sorting the cause-and-effect relationship between ideology and brain structure. Could be that liberal open-mindedness helps the brain grow in complexity – and conservatives habit of cowering behind ideology bloats their right amygdala.
Thanks, Mary Lupin
Google’s locked-down Honeycomb confronts Open Source ideology
There have always been two Androids. Lazy journalists – including myself – have called Google’s smartphone OS free and open source, but that’s never been the whole story. Google’s apparent decision last week to strictly control access to its Honeycomb tablet software puts a quiet division front and center, and it throws down a gauntlet that I would love to see open-source advocates finally meet.
Let’s get this “open Android” thing out of the way first. There are really two Androids. The first – let’s call it Android-O – is an open-source project that Google contributes a lot to. The second – Android-G – is a proprietary Google project that happens to frequently ingest and excrete open-source code.
At any given moment, the latest, hottest Android phones and devices are running the closed Android-G, not the open Android-O. That’s always been the case. Every new version of Android is introduced with Android-G devices, and eventually, once Google’s mind has moved on to other things, that code gets dumped out into the Android-O repository…
Google’s become unusually strict with Honeycomb, though, and that’s because the tablet market is very different from the phone market. The phone market has a shifting cast of minority players with different strengths. The tablet market, on the other hand, is dominated by one big gorilla: Apple.
The world is littered with the corpses of open-source mobile projects. Nokia’s Maemo, Intel and Nokia’s MeeGo, LiMo, OpenMoko, and TuxPhone have all failed in the market so far. Back in 2009, I said that “open source phones still fail” because wireless carriers don’t like the unexpected, dynamic nature of open-source projects.
But this time, I think the problem is different. Going up against Apple, the tablet leader, Google realized it needs an industry-leading UI and a consistent brand experience for Android on tablets.
And open-source projects, as is well known, have serious problems creating industry leading UIs. For one thing, open-source projects tend to attract hard-core programmers who love adding features, not visual visionaries. But possibly more importantly, a great end-user experience is often about editing – about making things fit to a consistent vision, which is much easier when there’s one consistent vision driving the project…
Goldman Sachs: Republican cuts hold back economic growth
A $61.5 billion spending-cut bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Saturday would slow economic growth significantly this year, according to an analysis by the global investment firm Goldman Sachs.
“Under the House passed spending bill, the drag on GDP growth from federal fiscal policy would increase by 1.5% to 2% in Q2 and Q3 compared with current law,” according to Alec Phillips, who signed the analysis…
“This nonpartisan study proves that the House Republicans’ proposal is a recipe for a double-dip recession,” said Senator Charles Schumer, a member of the Senate’s Democratic leadership.
Republicans in Congress, especially conservative Tea Party activists who were elected in November, have touted their fiscal 2011 spending-cut bill and upcoming attempts to impose more U.S. budget cuts as the key to improving the economy and creating jobs.
Which illustrates how out-of-touch with modern economics these clowns can be.
Democrats have countered that while there is a need to cut government spending and budget deficits over the long-term, policy-makers must tread softly in the short-term so the fragile economic recovery underway is not cut short…
With Democrats and Republicans facing a March 4 deadline to reach some sort of deal on funding the federal government, there are worries that a failure would lead to a temporary shutdown of many government offices and programs if there is no deal.
The Goldman Sachs analysis points out that a government shutdown “poses less risk” than proposed spending cuts “as long as it is brief…”
In its fiscal 2012 budget proposal released last week, the the Obama administration forecasted 2011 economic growth of 2.7 percent year over year, while Blue Chip economists estimate 3.1 percent.
Background disclaimer: I’ve been asked a few times to either include market analysis in this blog or offer a separate investing blog. I’ve paid little attention to investing other than studies in economics over my life. But, I got pissed-off enough at the shoddy management of what little I had set aside in mutual funds to begin studies and investing on my own in the downhill side of this Great Recession.
I cashed out most of those mutual funds and began investing in equities in November 2008 – just a few months before the bottom in March 2009. Those investments have increased in value over 300%.
Now, as for Goldman Sachs. I won’t invest in them because I think their ethics suck. Their behavior leading up to the Crash was reprehensible and slimy. Greed superseded responsibility to their clients. That doesn’t, however speak ill of their abilities at market analysis.
I think they’ve hit the nail smack on the head in this look at Republican reactionaries and their KoolAid Party class warfare allies. Reliance on 19th Century ideology versus essentials proven in practice from the days of Keynes up through Leontiev’s macroeconomic studies illustrates the irrelevance of what American conservatism has become. Or, rather, the irrelevance of those who claim to speak for conservatism – when their economic practices are closer to Mussolini’s corporatism than anything else.
Hindu group stirs debate over who “owns” Yoga
Yoga is practiced by about 15 million people in the United States, for reasons almost as numerous — from the physical benefits mapped in brain scans to the less tangible rewards that New Age journals call spiritual centering. Religion, for the most part, has nothing to do with it.
But a group of Indian-Americans has ignited a surprisingly fierce debate in the gentle world of yoga by mounting a campaign to acquaint Westerners with the faith that it says underlies every single yoga style followed in gyms, ashrams and spas: Hinduism.
The campaign, labeled “Take Back Yoga,” does not ask yoga devotees to become Hindu, or instructors to teach more about Hinduism. The small but increasingly influential group behind it, the Hindu American Foundation, suggests only that people become more aware of yoga’s debt to the faith’s ancient traditions.
That suggestion, modest though it may seem, has drawn a flurry of strong reactions from figures far apart on the religious spectrum. Dr. Deepak Chopra, the New Age writer, has dismissed the campaign as a jumble of faulty history and Hindu nationalism. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has said he agrees that yoga is Hindu — and cited that as evidence that the practice imperiled the souls of Christians who engage in it.
The question at the core of the debate — who owns yoga? — has become an enduring topic of chatter in yoga Web forums, Hindu American newspapers and journals catering to the many consumers of what is now a multibillion-dollar yoga industry.
RTFA. To me, the best that religions can offer is guidance to the spirit of charity that lies at the [oft-forgotten] roots of most. I never worked construction projects with Habitat for Humanity because the inevitable prayer sessions were a distraction from the task at hand; but, I would be the last to deny the good performed by such groups.
Ownership of the brand more often comes down to conflict, armed or otherwise, over who owns which patch of ideology, ritual or a chunk of land and livelihood. The article provides beaucoup details. All pretty silly.
Leading Republican “can’t wait for the blood bath”
Former Senator Alan Simpson is a Very Serious Person. He must be — after all, President Obama appointed him as co-chairman of a special commission on deficit reduction.
So here’s what the very serious Mr. Simpson said on Friday: “I can’t wait for the blood bath in April. … When debt limit time comes, they’re going to look around and say, ‘What in the hell do we do now? We’ve got guys who will not approve the debt limit extension unless we give ’em a piece of meat, real meat,’ ” meaning spending cuts. “And boy, the blood bath will be extraordinary,” he continued.
Think of Mr. Simpson’s blood lust as one more piece of evidence that our nation is in much worse shape, much closer to a political breakdown, than most people realize…
Now, you might think that the prospect of this kind of standoff, which might deny many Americans essential services, wreak havoc in financial markets and undermine America’s role in the world, would worry all men of good will. But no, Mr. Simpson “can’t wait.” And he’s what passes, these days, for a reasonable Republican.
The fact is that one of our two great political parties has made it clear that it has no interest in making America governable, unless it’s doing the governing. And that party now controls one house of Congress, which means that the country will not, in fact, be governable without that party’s cooperation — cooperation that won’t be forthcoming…
Right now, in particular, Republicans are blocking an extension of unemployment benefits — an action that will both cause immense hardship and drain purchasing power from an already sputtering economy. But there’s no point appealing to the better angels of their nature; America just doesn’t work that way anymore…
How does this end? Mr. Obama is still talking about bipartisan outreach, and maybe if he caves in sufficiently he can avoid a federal shutdown this spring. But any respite would be only temporary; again, the G.O.P. is just not interested in helping a Democrat govern.
My sense is that most Americans still don’t understand this reality. They still imagine that when push comes to shove, our politicians will come together to do what’s necessary. But that was another country.
RTFA. Many more examples of a political party committed to power and greed above national interest.
Many of my friends and family who have become ex-Republicans – they tired of being called Republicans In Name Only by the quislings now in charge – wonder and hope for a centrist party in lieu of centrist tendencies in the Democratic Party. Partly because they still hate to ally themselves with politicians they disliked for so many decades.
Meanwhile, step back, folks and watch the Killer Klowns try their best to shove these United States back into a depression.
In Poland, a memorial becomes a religious battleground – UPDATED
Young people “sick of living in a medieval society“
Every day, a small group of protesters gathers across the street from Poland’s presidential palace. Some kneel, others weep before pictures of those who died last April when the plane carrying President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 other Polish politicians and civil servants crashed in western Russia.
The demonstrators’ main focus is a simple, wooden cross of 4 meters that was erected outside the presidential palace soon after the crash in Smolensk. They say they have no intention of giving up their vigil or of taking down the cross until a monument to Mr. Kaczynski and the other victims of the Smolensk crash is placed in front of the presidential palace…Since then, there has been a standoff between the demonstrators who call themselves the Defenders of the Cross and the authorities…
“The cross has become a religious, patriotic and political symbol that makes the demonstrators almost untouchable,” said Jacek Kucharczyk, director of the Institute of Public Affairs, an independent research organization in Warsaw. “This is a test of the church’s influence and those political parties who hide behind the cross…”
During the presidential campaign last June, priests urged worshipers to vote for Mr. Kaczynski, some even saying it would be a sin if worshipers voted for Bronislaw Komorowski, a supporter of the center-right Civic Platform government who was eventually elected president…
Over the past decade, the number of candidates for priesthood has declined 30 percent, according to the Conference of the Polish Episcopate. Admissions to the church’s 84 seminaries have plummeted 30 percent in the past three years. Admissions to female religious orders have halved, falling 15 percent last year alone. And even though nine-tenths of Poland’s 38 million inhabitants still call themselves Roman Catholics, the majority follow their own interpretation of the church’s pronouncements on moral issues, according to opinion polls.
Because of these problems, Mr. Cichocki says the church has shown little courage in trying to end the dispute over the cross. But neither has Donald Tusk, the prime minister and leader of Civic Platform. Without informing the demonstrators or the public, Mr. Tusk recently and almost secretly unveiled a commemorative plaque to the Smolensk victims on the wall of the Presidential Palace. He said he hoped it would end the dispute, but that clearly has not happened.
Don’t think fundamentalists in the United States have the market cornered on nutball manifestations. We all know what flavor of Christian someone is talking about when they refer to the American Taliban; but, descendant churches in many other lands cling to a sectarian fringe in their attempt to hang onto political power.
UPDATE: Removed, today.
Latest stupid fatwa says dogs are “unclean”
A senior Iranian cleric has decreed dogs are “unclean” and should not be kept as pets — a move aimed at discouraging Western-style dog ownership in the Islamic state.
Dogs are considered “unclean” under Islamic tradition but, while relatively rare in Iran, some people do keep them as pets.
By issuing a fatwa — a religious ruling — Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi has sent a clear message that this trend must stop.
“Friendship with dogs is a blind imitation of the West,” he was quoted as saying in Javan daily. “There are lots of people in the West who love their dogs more than their wives and children.”
Guard dogs and sheep dogs are considered acceptable under Islamic law but Iranians who carry dogs in their cars or take them to public parks can be stopped by police and fined…
The anthropology and evolution of dogs alongside humans is something long established. Accepting their companion role is common to many cultures, especially those that have progressed beyond poverty.
Nutballs like this Grand Ayatollah – pampered, aggrandized by a niche in a state religion – are diminishing as any retrograde species of ideologue should.
I look forward to the day when human beings have the chance to visit a museum of extinct ideologies and peer at a diorama featuring a theocratic dead end like Shirazi.
Bring the dog!
