Zakaria: GOP's Identity No Longer Rooted in Practical Realities of America.

Fareed Zakaria* has again offered a different way to think about a puzzling, unsettling question: how should we view and understand the new identity markers and behavior of the 21st-century Republican Party? In this case, he suggests we need to recognize the GOP as no longer rooted in the practical reality of America, her challenges or their resolutions. Rather, and ironically, like other extreme ideological orientations, they are now more driven by abstract principles and philosophical constructs.

He introduces us to his premise by recounting a years-ago interview with George Will, Newsweek columnist and self-described conservative. From his recent article in Time:

Conservatism, he explained, was rooted in reality. Unlike the abstract theories of Marxism and socialism, it started not from an imagined society but from the world as it actually exists. From Aristotle to Edmund Burke, the greatest conservative thinkers have said that to change societies, one must understand them, accept them as they are and help them evolve. 

Watching this election campaign, one wonders what has happened to that tradition. Conservatives now espouse ideas drawn from abstract principles with little regard to the realities of America's present or past. This is a tragedy, because conservatism has an important role to play in modernizing the U.S.  

---"How Today's Conservatism Lost Touch with Reality," by Fareed Zakaria, Time (6.27.11)

I'm guessing you may not have cast the GOP's new "conservative" political identity in quite those terms, thought about it in quite that way. But he unpacks his argument for the position as he goes on. More from the same Time article:

Consider the debates over the economy. The Republican prescription is to cut taxes and slash government spending — then things will bounce back. Now, I would like to see lower rates in the context of tax simplification and reform, but what is the evidence that tax cuts are the best path to revive the U.S. economy? Taxes — federal and state combined — as a percentage of GDP are at their lowest level since 1950. The U.S. is among the lowest taxed of the big industrial economies. So the case that America is grinding to a halt because of high taxation is not based on facts but is simply a theoretical assertion. The rich countries that are in the best shape right now, with strong growth and low unemployment, are ones like Germany and Denmark, neither one characterized by low taxes...

But what about the GOP's insistence that we have outsized government that must be cut back drastically? Mr. Zakaria:

[R]ight now any discussion of government involvement in the economy — even to build vital infrastructure — is impossible because it is a cardinal tenet of the new conservatism that such involvement is always and forever bad...[But] from Singapore to South Korea to Germany to Canada, evidence abounds that some strategic actions by the government can act as catalysts for free-market growth. 

Of course, American history suggests that as well. In the 1950s, '60s and '70s, the U.S. government made massive investments in science and technology, in state universities and in infant industries. It built infrastructure that was the envy of the rest of the world. Those investments triggered two generations of economic growth and put the U.S. on top of the world of technology and innovation. 

But that history has been forgotten. When considering health care, for example, Republicans confidently assert that their ideas will lower costs, when we simply do not have much evidence for this. What we do know is that of the world's richest countries, the U.S. has by far the greatest involvement of free markets and the private sector in health care. It also consumes the largest share of GDP, with no significant gains in health on any measurable outcome. We need more market mechanisms to cut medical costs, but Republicans don't bother to study existing health care systems anywhere else in the world. They resemble the old Marxists, who refused to look around at actual experience.

Mr. Zakaria is no less direct and clear in his concluding points, as he calls out today's GOP to embrace the principles and identity that once made them an essential part of shaping the American economic and societal success story. In conclusion:

Conservatives used to be the ones with heads firmly based in reality...Today conservatives shy away from the sensible ideas of the Bowles-Simpson commission on deficit reduction because those ideas are too deeply rooted in, well, reality. Does anyone think we are really going to get federal spending to the level it was at under Calvin Coolidge, as Paul Ryan's plan assumes? Does anyone think we will deport 11 million people? 

We need conservative ideas to modernize the U.S. economy and reform American government. But what we have instead are policies that don't reform but just cut and starve government — a strategy that pays little attention to history or best practices from around the world and is based instead on a theory.

Amen, Mr. Zakaria. Thank you for the perspective. 

[*Fareed Zakaria has been managing editor of Foreign Affairs, a columnist for Newsweek and editor of Newsweek International, and now is Editor-at-Large of Time and host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS. He has been called a liberal, a moderate, and a conservative, but identifies himself as a centrist. If you look across the span of his writing and speaking, it is hard to fit him into a tidy ideological or political identity, although he did support Barack Obama for president. His views and values are considered, well informed, and well reasoned. If one were to place Fareed Zakaria and David Brooks as the book-ends of the space defining a centrist orientation to government and political identity, it would be a well-informed, principled, practical, and honorable identity, indeed.]

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2077943,00.html

Of Emerson, Whitman, and Oliver

From different eras and places, let these poetic voices and their connectedness say what they will to you:

1. Ralph Waldo Emerson

(from Each and All)

Then I said, 'I covet truth;

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat;

I leave it behind with the games of youth.'

As I spoke, beneath my feet

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,

Running over the club-moss burrs.

I inhaled the violets breath;

Around me stood the oaks and first;

Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground;

Over me soared the eternal sky,

Full of light and deity.

Again I saw, again I heard,

The rolling river, the morning bird;

Beauty through my senses stole;

I yielded myself to the perfect whole.


2. Walt Whitman
(from To See God)

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?

I see something of God each hour of the twenty four,
and each moment then,

In the faces of men and women I see God
and in my own face in the glass,

I see letters from God dropped in the street,
and every one is signed by God's name.


3. Mary Oliver
(from Not This, Not That)

Not this, not that, nor anything...
will alter

my love for you, my friends and my [B]eloved,
or for you, ghosts of Emerson and Whitman,

or for you, oh blue sky of a summer morning,
that makes me roll in a barrel of gratitude
down hills,

or for you, oldest of friends: hope;
or for you, newest of friends: faith;

or for you, ...dearest of surprises: my own life.


4. Mary Oliver
(from Mornings at Blackwater)

For years, every morning, I drank
from Blackwater Pond...
And always it assuaged me
from the dry bowl of the very far past.

What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.

So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.
And live your life.

Just As It Is: David Brook's On the State of Politics in America

David Brooks is the designated "Republican" or more "conservative" columnist on the op-ed pages of the New York Times. But narrow characterizations like that neither contain him nor do him justice. From my Independent perspective, he is more an American centrist and realist who holds fast to America's highest, most enduring political, economic and social support ideals. And he does not compromise his identity, intellect, or values by being pulled one way or another by the narrowing, polarized party politics of today.

I don't always agree with his assessments or positions on issues, particularly on our warring adventures. And I may be somewhat more concerned that necessary cost-reduction and reform of social programs must still leave education, healthcare, and support of the poor and lower-income retired focused enough and effective enough to maintain the vitality, competitveness and social stability of a country that still aspires to greatness. But he cares earnestly about these things, too. We start with reasonably common assumptions and values, and belief in a political process meant to have as its purpose sharing the best thinking and seeking the best answers for America as a whole. And it calls on our elected national leaders to first and always be accountable for their role as national leader-statesmen. This now, from a recent David Brooks op-ed column in the NYT:

I'm registering a protest because for someone of my Hamiltonian/National Greatness perspective, the two parties contesting this election are unusually pathetic. Their programs are unusually unimaginative. Their policies are unusually incommensurate to the problem at hand.  

This election is about how to avert national decline. All other issues flow from that anxiety.  

The election is happening during a downturn in the economic cycle, but the core issue is the accumulation of deeper structural problems that this recession has exposed — unsustainable levels of debt, an inability to generate middle-class incomes, a dysfunctional political system, the steady growth of special-interest sinecures and the gradual loss of national vitality. 

The number of business start-ups per capita has been falling steadily for the past three decades. Workers' share of national income has been declining since 1983. Male wages have been stagnant for about 40 years. The American working class — those without a college degree — is being decimated, economically and socially. In 1960, for example, 83 percent of those in the working class were married. Now only 48 percent are. ... 

The Republican growth agenda — tax cuts and nothing else — is stupefyingly boring, fiscally irresponsible and politically impossible. Gigantic tax cuts — if they were affordable — might boost overall growth, but they would do nothing to address the structural problems that are causing a working-class crisis.  

Republican politicians don't design policies to meet specific needs, or even to help their own working-class voters. They use policies as signaling devices — as ways to reassure the base that they are 100 percent orthodox and rigidly loyal. Republicans have taken a pragmatic policy proposal from 1980 and sanctified it as their core purity test for 2012.  

As for the Democrats, they offer practically nothing. They acknowledge huge problems like wage stagnation and then offer... light rail! Solar panels! It was telling that the Democrats offered no budget this year, even though they are supposedly running the country. That's because they too are trapped in a bygone era.  

Mentally, they are living in the era of affluence, but, actually, they are living in the era of austerity. They still have these grand spending ideas, but there is no longer any money to pay for them and there won't be for decades. Democrats dream New Deal dreams, propose nothing and try to win elections by making sure nobody ever touches Medicare.   

---"Pundit Under Protest," by David Brooks, New York Times (6.13.11)

Amen. And of course, David Brooks is not the only one making these observations. Sane, balanced, but sad voices from all sides are shouting out these obvious failures of our two parties and our national political process to all who will hear it. They are calling out our elected US House members and Senators. But so few among those sad assemblies appear to be listening.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/opinion/14brooks.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper 

Maoists Attacking Liberalism in China

Recent articles have made the sober observation that reactionary Maoists may be having more influence on events in China than we appreciate. And those events would include the seeming over-reactions to the risk of a Chinese "jasmine revolution," the detention and harrassment of artist and social critic Ai Wei Wei among many others, and the removal of the Confucius statue from Tienanmen.

It's not that the potential for social unrest related to economic challenges and societal dislocations in China are not sufficient in themselves to draw out the repressive tendencies of more conservative Chinese leaders. They are. It's not that the leadership's hold on societal stability might be more fragile than we realized. It very well may be--and the party conservatives likely see it just that way. But China's increasingly progressive leadership have made much progress in these areas over the last few decades. We would have expected that moderate leadership would hold sway and be more cautious about such a broad-based repressive campaign. But that failing, it is only reasonable to look for other factors or influences, as well, to expect there is more to it than we know. And in this already fragile societal context, it appears likely the resurgent confidence of Maoist voices are also influencing the actions of conservative and moderate leaders alike.

Naples friend from the Chinese Art & History Group, Eila McKenzie, recently visited her son in Beijing and kindly shared the surprisingly nonplussed, ground-level reaction she encountered to the recent removal of the Confucius statue: a shrug of their collective shoulders and puzzlement at concerns that it should much matter. But to the Maoist reactionaries, it apparently did matter--as was reported in the NYT article I cited in my recent post, "Confucius Vanishes from Tienanmen Square" (4.29.11). Now an Economist article also suggests the increasing volume of these Maoist voices are influencing the nervous, repressive inclinations of the PRC party leadership in these several situations. From The Economist:

The petition bore the names of nearly 10,000 people accusing a liberal intellectual of slandering Mao Zedong and attempting to overthrow the Communist Party itself. Emboldened by a chill political wind, diehard Maoists in China are rising to confront their critics. 

The Maoists' appeal for the arrest of Mao Yushi, a well-known economist (and no relation of the late chairman), is their most concerted public attempt in many years to put pressure on the government. A clutch of Maoist websites frequently vilify intellectuals such as Mr Mao. But campaigning openly for someone to be put on trial is unusual. It is a symptom of a recent escalation of ideological struggles between China's West-leaning liberals and conservative hardliners. The Maoists froth at the extreme fringe of the hardline camp. But their cause is gaining headway as the authorities wage an intense crackdown on dissent, putting pressure on NGOs and arresting or otherwise making vanish dozens of government critics. 

---"Liberalism under attack in China: Boundlessly loyal to the great monster," The Economist, Asia Section (5.28.11)

And this has played on the concerns of the party leadership about their economic challenges, societal dislocations and related social unrest. And then there is the approaching 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, and the importance of setting the right balance in content and tone for a successful national celebration. More from the same article:

All year the Communist Party has been jittery about the possible spread of Arab-style "jasmine revolution" to China. (The word "jasmine" has been all but banned in the media, as has the flower itself in markets.) Now the party is all the more anxious as it prepares to celebrate, on July 1st, the 90th anniversary of its founding. It does not want the occasion to be clouded by misgivings about the man who led it to power. Mao is too intimately linked with the party's identity to allow any further examination of the "mistakes" the party sheepishly admitted he made, five years after his death in 1976.

But the increasing liberal majority in the party leadership, the force and vision behind China's slow evolution toward a modern nation with its own brand of market socialism and advanced society, will not stand by and allow their direction to be reversed. Instead, they will likely do what they always do: patiently bend as necessary, give what must be given, to get past this challenge to their progress. And it is a time of many other significant economic, societal, and political challenges for China. Doubtless that is why more strident Maoist voices are now being heard and joined. As in the case of America's Tea Party, conservative populist alternatives always seem to draw more dissident voices in times of economic and social unhappiness. But this too will likely pass, and China will step back on the road of measured but certain social progress. At least, that is what we should be hoping for: that they will patiently wait out and work through their problems, then again move intentionally, with dispatch, to take advantage of their opportunities. The general thinking and concerns of some of China's government and business leaders suggest they understand the problem, and are impliedly addressing it. From the same article:

A relative liberal, Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, in a meeting with a visitor from Hong Kong in April, said two forces were causing difficulties for China's reform efforts. One, Mr Wen said, was "vestiges of feudal society" (party-speak for conservatism). The other, he added, was the "pernicious influence of the Cultural Revolution". Apologists for that orgy of violence, destruction and persecution in the latter years of Mao's rule abound in China's Maoist circles. Qin Xiao, a former chairman of China Merchants Bank and a prominent moderniser, warned in an interview this month that the "evil habits" of the Cultural Revolution were in danger of resurfacing. At least this time, in contrast to earlier hardline crackdowns, some liberals are fighting back.

But the article and these quotes from Wen Jiabao and Qin Xiao hardly substantiate that "liberals are fighting back." The quote from Wen Jiabao states that the two elements "causing difficulties for China's reform efforts" were the party conservatives and the Maoists--which merely states the problem. The prominent banker says more or less the same. Of course, the implication is that reform efforts are ongoing. Regardless, it is fair to expect that the more liberal Chinese leadership are continuing their efforts--but as carefully, wisely, as they can, including doing what Chinese leadership does well: patiently take the long view, bending where they must, conceding what they must, and planning their stronger responses and initatives for when better economic and social winds are blowing.

China is negotiating a rough section of road. And they will have a difficult time keeping their progress parade marching in line and properly ordered. But however clumsy and halting their short-term progress, however unwelcome some of their methods, in due course they will likely find their way to smoother, more reliable footing. Then the progress parade will again move steadily to a more stable economic and societal beat, and progressives will again hold sway in advancing their social agenda. The Maoists will become fewer in number and more marginalized with every passing decade. At least, that's how we must earnestly hope it will all evolve.

Link:

http://www.economist.com/node/18744533?story_id=18744533 

Only in RI: 'They just broke the city'

"Only in Rhode Island," is an oft-invoked sigh of resignation in RI, usually inspired by the latest ugly turn of events in a culturally-ingrained, historically unending course of government ineptitude, mismanagement, and corruption. And too often taking their place at the periphery, if not the center, of these disspiriting political messes are the involvements of public employee unions. And in this case--this well-documented case--they are right at the center of Providence's unworkable pension and retirement healthcare obligations.

Not long ago, the front page of the Providence Journal ("Projo") displayed a half-page graph showing the relatively meager $millions of funding put away and available to meet the $billions of obligations owing for state and municipal pension and retiree health benefits in Rhode Island. Meeting those obligations is impossible. The new state treasurer has now set about bringing all the parties to the table and to the process of cutting back these obligations to workable levels that reflect what semblance of fairness can be achieved for both affected public employees and taxpayers. (And, yes, I know that it is not only in RI. Lots of other states and municipalities have crafted their own disasters of irresponsibility and incompetence in these areas of public employee benefits.)

But this article on the front page of today's Projo details the ludicrously indefensible involvement of Providence public union employees, often public union officers, holding a majority of seats on the Providence Retirement Board. The public union majority members came to dominate unchecked the recommendation and approval process for increasingly unworkable levels of increased benefits, and the process of funding them. It evolved that neither the City Council nor Mayor could oversee or overrule their decisions. Unbelievable. Government failure in so many ways, on so many levels.

For my friends outside RI, there will likely be the bewildered question of how any properly functioning representative government could define the roles of public representatives to allow this to happen, how they could be complicit in allowing the public unions to exercise such control in these matters. For those friends who share my years of life and work in the Ocean State, but also didn't appreciate the full history of this particular episode, the only thing left to them is to more despondently than ever say again, "Only in Rhode Island."

(Click on the link above or below for this real-life story of how far out of control the role of public-employee unions can get--and how irresponsible and unrepentant the former government and union officials were and are about it.)

Link:
http://www.projo.com/news/content/providence_pension_history_06-05-11_HPO9OU2_v101.3125e19.html 

Next in Line?

We Americans instinctively rely on our history of moving past each new era and overcoming each new national challenge. We are a supremely self-confident nation--not just because of what we have accomplished, but as much because of a resulting sense of annointing and entitlement. But today's challenges come from the weaknesses and failings of unquestioned self-confidence, undisciplined self-indulgence, and abdicated leadership--as individuals and elected representatives, as a government and nation. And it comes as much from that miscast claim to annointing or entitlement. We can only hope that history does not place us next in that line of great nations and empires that failed for those very same reasons.

GH