Category: Politics, Economics & Current Affairs

Yesterday was Hubert Humphrey’s 100th birthday. In some ways, I think, he was the person who was most singularly resposnible for the creation of the modern Democratic Party – the party that was able to make Barack Obama president. Humphrey accomplished this with his stunning success in inserting the “civil rights plank” into the Party platform at the 1948 Philadelphia Convention.

Humphrey was an amazing public speaker. At Philadelphia, challenging Truman, the then mayor from Minneapolis most famously said: “To those who say, my friends, to those who say, that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years (too) late! To those who say, this civil rights program is an infringement on states’ rights, I say this: the time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!”

The 20-year trajectory from Philadelphia in 1948, when he challenged the status quo and the establishment, to Chicago in 1968, when he represented the failures of a status quo he helped create as Johnson’s Vice President, was one of the most remarkable in modern American politics. He could have – should have – been president. But his acquiescence to the Kennedy/Johnson adventure in Vietnam destroyed him and nearly destroyed the Democratic Party. I would venture that the only thing that subsequently saved the party was Nixon’s self-immolation a few years later.

All the Democratic presidents that have followed: Carter, Clinton, and now Obama, are ideological inheritors of Humphrey’s legacy. The picture (borrowed from wikipedia, where I know there are no copyright issues in reproduction) shows Humphrey with Carter and, on the right, Jerry Brown.

I found an interesting tidbit in an editorial by Retired US Army General John Cushman, that was posted at The Atlantic.  President Carter promised during his campaign to get the US military completely out of South Korea.  It ended up not working out so well, for him – the Pentagon stalled, at the time, and Reagan reversed the process.  And 35 years later, the US is still in South Korea.  And, as I've argued before in my little blog, that's not a bad thing.  It's part of the balance of power in this part of the world, obviously, although I don't reject arguments that it probably also at least provides the North one of its favorite excuses for irrational behavior. 

My thought, however, returns to more recent deployments of US troops, in places like Afghanistan or Iraq.  Why do we need to be so committed to "leaving"?  Wouldn't it be smarter, and earn more trust on the part of the sorts of "locals" we're tyring to support, to be committed to "staying," but without the ongoing violence?  I mean… I'm not trying to justify that our troops are there.  It was a mistake that they ended up in Iraq, without a doubt.  And Afghanistan has been managed very badly from the start, too.  But… as long as  – or now that – they're there, we can't be "short timers" – short timers are not invested in long-term solutions.  

I’m not going to try to summarize the whole article here – I suggest everyone read it, however. James Fallows discusses the issue of “structural corruption” in US government. The concept is often raised in the discussion of foreign countries, from China to Afghanistan, but it needs to be pointed out much more often, as Fallows does, that the US has it too. And it has it very, very badly.

One very annoying element of US exceptionalism shared by both the left and right, very broadly, is the weird, unrealistic belief that the US has no corruption, or in any event that it has much less than “other countries.” This really annoys me. I think the only difference between US corruption, and that of other countries more noted for corruption, such as Mexico or even South Korea, is that US corruption is so exclusively “structural” that it’s easily “depersonalized” and pushed from one’s mind.

I like Fallows’ reminder that it’s a really big deal, nevertheless. I find the concept of “structural corruption” to be a powerful one, intellectually. Please read his article.

Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic is talking about the bizarrely numerous people who still celebrate the Confederacy in the contemporary South. He writes, “I think we need to be absolutely clear that 150 years after the defeat of one of the Confederacy, there are still creationists who seek to celebrate the treasonous attempt to raise an entire country based on the ownership of people.”  He quotes at length from the incriminating document the founders of the Confederacy used to found their secession.  My addendum: these “creationists” that Coates makes reference to are the same demographic who have allowed the Republican Party to conquer the South over the last several decades. Their most recent incarnation seems to be deeply entagled with the Tea Party movement and the Palinists (Paleoists?). This is the ultimate proof of the moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party.

The Korean War entered a new, slightly more volatile phase earlier today.  Yes, the Korean War never ended.  Did you know that?

It was only ever a cease-fire.  So… to those who are worried about me:  I'm fine.  Life in this prosperous and amazingly peaceful nation-at-war goes on as normal.  It happens like this, sometimes.  It's just the way things go.  ^_^

"You don't get prosperity through this kind of devaluation" – some talking head (not sure who) overheard on NPR, commenting on the Fed's recent further loosening of money supply, vis-a-vis the perpetually undervalued RMB (Chinese Yuan), etc., etc.

Well… from where I sit, I beg to differ.  South Korea has successfully ridden an undervalued currency right through this recent "Great Recession" as if there were only a minor blip on the economic radar.   More broadly, over the longer term, South Korea has leveraged an undervalued currency (among other macroeconomic wizardry) into a seat on the G20.  As long as people want to buy your stuff (and people want to buy South Korean stuff, from cell phones to cars to cargo ships to nuclear power plants to engineering services for building the world's tallest buildings), you can keep selling. 

And so… the US not only should be content to let Bernanke manipulate the dollar lower… I would argue that it really has no choice, in the current global economic context.  And it won't necessarily be a bad thing – for the US.  It will alleviate federal debt, it will help close the trade deficit.

The bad part will be that it will antagonize countries like South Korea or China that have relied, for so long, on an over-valued US dollar.  Could the US (re-)achieve prosperity through "this kind of devaluation"?  It depends a great deal on how intelligently (or unintelligently) other countries react.  The Chinese and South Korean economies have other strengths that could see them through the inevitable crisis a dollar devaluation could provoke – not least their infrastructure spending and booming domestic consumer markets – but things could still get ugly. 

I'm curious how this will play out.  Check back at this blog, in 20 years – I'll provide an update.

Somewhat relatedly, from Derek Decloet at the Globe and Mail:

[1] WE, THE LEADERS OF THE G20, are united in our conviction that by working together we can secure a more prosperous future for the citizens of all countries.

[2] However, empty platitudes aside, if presented with an opportunity to make the citizens of our own country more prosperous at the expense of someone else’s country, 20 out of 20 of us will take it, most of the time.

Jim Oberstar has represented Minnesota’s 8th district longer than Jerry Brown hasn’t been Governor of California. He was already a fixture in state politics when I moved from California to Minnesota the first time in 1983. I think I heard him speak, several times, during my “politics summer” in 1984, during the Mondale campaign. I’m not sure I ever liked him – he seemed like Minnesota’s answer to the sort of “congressman-for-life” concept that one mentally associates with Appalachia. Then again, the 8th district is “da Range” – Minnesota’s answer to Appalachia.

But he often took political stands that I understood and respected, despite his propensity for pork. I think he was right to feel that infrastructure issues were (and continue to be) crucial to revitalizing regional and national economies. On the other hand, he was positioned as pro-life (inevitable given the demographics of his district, I suppose), and I really disliked his opposition to free trade agreements. Still, those are positions that have little to do with one’s credentials as a lefty. And… I learned just now, from the wikithing, that he was a linguist. No kidding. And he has a Master’s degree in “European Studies.” Really? How gauche. No wonder, in this contemporary politcal climate…

As of last night, Oberstar has fallen to a political newcomer with the typically unusual name of Cravaack (“typically unusual” meaning that I think that Minnesota’s 8th district seems to have more than its share of unusual last names).

The 8th district is Dylan’s home, the “north country.” It’s greater Duluth. It’s the Boundary Waters – which Oberstar made into a National Park, I believe. It’s Lake Superior, and the Iron Range, and rough, left-leaning Finns on snowmobiles. It’s some of what I most love about Minnesota. And now it’s gone and tea-bagged itself, for all the world to see. Lovely. What’s become of what was once the nearly socialist character of rural Minnesota? It’s been Bachmannated and now Cravaacked beyond recognition.

Feeling pretty pleased about being an expat.

Below: a picture I took in Duluth, last year, during my back-in-the-USA-but-only-temporarily tour; looking northwest toward downtown, from “the Point.”

The citizens of the state of Oklahoma have approved a measure (State Question 755) that prohibits the state courts from considering Sharia (islamic) law.  I was sooo worried.

I continue to feel relief that I'm an expat.

Néstor Kirchner, the last president of Argentina, and husband (“first gentleman”?) to the current president, died yesterday. He and his wife have been so frequently vilified in the US media as Argentine analogues to Venezuela’s Chávez, but in comparison to his venal and buffoonish predecessor, Carlos Menem, I think that this couple has been a profound improvement in governance (not to say perfect, obviously… corruption is relative).

I’m surprised at his death – it’s clearly premature. And it rather throws a wrench into the plan of his and his wife’s to rule the newly re-branded People’s Republic of Pampas indefinitely, as an alternating diarchy. Who will replace Fernández de Kirchner, next year?